Adult beetles are small, around 3–4 mm long (1/8 inches), of a uniform rust, brown or black color.

[4] The beetle is of Indo-Australian origin and less able to survive outdoors than the closely related species Tribolium confusum.

Although previously regarded as a relatively sedentary insect, it has been shown in molecular and ecological research to disperse considerable distances by flight.

[7] In red flour beetles, a male's ability to attract females (via pheromones) is genetically based.

[9] Females from different populations of red flour beetles are highly polyandrous, while others avoid having multiple mates.

If a female beetle has only one mate, and his sperm count is sufficient, that male has a very high chance of siring offspring with her.

These results indicated that sexual selection reduces mutational load, and by doing so improves population viability.

[11] Polygamy in red flour beetles is a behavior common to both males and females of this species.

For this reason, females copulate with more males when genetic diversity is low in order to attain fertilization success and also increase fitness in their subsequent offspring.

Polygamy can thus be seen as an evolutionary result as males compete to be the last to fertilize the female's egg and contribute more to the next generation.

Sperm precedence is thus a means of evolutionary competition through which the males try to achieve greater reproductive success.

Compared to Drosophila, the red flour beetle more closely represents the development of other insects.

RNAi is RNA that degrades mRNA transcripts to show a knock-down of gene function.

Compared to in Drosophila, RNAi has a greater response in the red flour beetle, making it ideal for knock-down experiments.

[20] This shows that CRISPR technology and gene editing are viable options for studying the red flour beetle as an insect model organism.