For fans of a velvety latte or a jolting espresso, meet your greatest enemy: the coffee berry borer beetle. This tiny pest, just a few millimetres long, can ruin entire coffee harvests. It affects more than 20 million farming families, and causes losses to the tune of half a billion US dollars every year- losses that are set to increase as the world warms.

But the beetle isn’t acting alone. It has a secret weapon, stolen from an unwitting accomplice.

Ricardo Acuña has found that the beetle’s ancestors pilfered a gene from bacteria, most likely the ones that live in its gut. This gene, now on permanent loan, allows the insect to digest the complex carbohydrates found in coffee berries.