These are the bizarre, ornate insect coffins made by TikTok influencer Jimmy Tarraga.
Jimmy regularly updates his 1.2 million followers with slick visuals of his tiny handcrafted wooden caskets for deceased bees, bumblebees, and even cockroaches.
Seconds-long video clips show how he even holds solemn, candlelit funerals for his fallen insect pals.
Jimmy – full name Jimmy Roberto Tarraga Castillo – told Newsflash in an interview: “The first video, of the burial of the bee couple, was filmed and edited over several days, from 24th June to 29th June.”
The 23-year-old – who hails from Tarija Department, Bolivia – added: “The second piece, of the cockroach, shows a compilation of the other funerals I did previously. I started filming on 16th September and finished everything on 5th October.”
On how his unusual hobby came about, Jimmy – a Social and Communication Sciences graduate – told Newsflash: “It’s going to sound weird, but before, my content on Tiktok was about drawings, and there came a time when I ran out of ideas.
“One afternoon like any other, I found a couple of drowned bees in my dogs’ water trough that was on the patio, and I thought, why not replicate a video I had seen on YouTube of a man who buried a bee.
“So I got to work and built the coffin, painted it, as well as trying to make it as well-produced as possible in every aspect, from recording, editing, camera angles to soundtrack.
“In order to captivate and make people aware that every living being on Earth deserves respect and is important.”
Jimmy – who describes his home country as a “land of hard-working, simple, and kind people” – said of his minuscule but highly ornate woodworks: “I’m the one who builds each coffin, I choose what shape to give them, I paint them, I make their crosses.”
He continued: “More than a passion, it is a respect I have for every living thing that inhabits the Earth, but the animals I appreciate the most are bees, as they are part of the biodiversity on which we all depend to survive.
“And if one day crop yields fail, the entire ecosystem starting from vegetables to fruits would be much smaller. If all those were to disappear, the existence of humanity would end.”
