A very interesting post @agmoore, I have seen a lot of these beetles only in photos shared in entomology groups, they always recommend not to manipulate them in the same way you have highlighted in this post. On the other hand, I found it very curious about the soldier and the bet, it reminded me of a case of a teenager who also for a bet ate a slug and ended up with brain damage.

Beetles are very interesting, we can see them as very quiet insects, but what few know is that they can be provided with very powerful defense mechanisms, for example, bombardier beetles can shoot chemicals capable of burning or irritating the skin, it must not be anything nice that one of those "chemical shots" goes to one of our eyes 😄.

Nice to read you again, hope everything is going very well.