Dead Beetle Walking

How small can a beetle get? A minuscule black dot of a predator Plodding (as beetles do when not chewing up other insects) around the lip of a bowl, clapping together stubby mandibles swatting the steam. Beetles are tanks they are built to withstand all in-coming, except maybe birds and the birds don’t eat them because they taste like baby goo dipped in crispy aspic. Again, how small can a natural born killer get? The beetle tentatively, gingerly, marches around the edge of a bowl as if hunting its own scent trail. Can it only hunt itself, and will it find enough of itself to make a decent beetle meal? These and other questions of size, capacity and predatory prowess must wait for it has fallen into the tomato soup, and it seems this particular size beetle cannot swim, perhaps its mini motor was out of gas or its tank too heavy to float?