Kubaza beetle

The Kubaza beetles were a vicious hive-minded species of beetles that were native to the harsh surface of the world of Mustafar. Their diet consisted of the minerals and ores that were plentiful on their volcanic homeworld and, as such, were a common sight near lava floes. Kubaza were aggressive creatures, especially when they felt their nests were threatened, and they had a unique way of handling predators or attackers which was simply to explode upon being fatally wounded. Presumably this would have killed the Kubaza beetle's killer and allowed the rest of the hive to escape from harm. A large population of Kubaza beetles lived in the Kubaza beetle cavern on the side of the central volcano.

Following the Battle of Yavin, the collector Kakirk tasked a group of spacers to hunt and kill an unreasonable number of kubaza beetles.^[4]

Behind the scenes

Kubaza beetles appeared in the video game Star Wars Galaxies, a massively multiplayer online roleplaying game developed by Sony and published by LucasArts, prior to its closure on December 15, 2011. It should be noted that the Kubaza beetle's co-inhabitants of Mustafar, Mustafarians, look very similar to the Kubaz. This lead some to believe that they were one and the same, but that was not the case. However, Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith: The Visual Dictionary depicts a Mustafarian wearing a Kubazian skirt, which, when coupled with the presence of the kubaza beetles, may very well point to a relationship between the species (such as the Duros and Neimoidians).