Net-wing beetles are not uncommon along forest trails and in the scrubland of coastal woods, where minor outbreaks can unleash a flight of slim bodies with bright wing cases that drift over the path with little sense of urgency. Lacking the shiny counternance of darkling beetles and chrysomelids, which abound on large trunks and tender foliage respectively, as well as the elusive bulk of scarabs and long-horned beetles, lycids are typically elongated insects with serrated antennae, inobtrusive heads, and slender elytra that fully shield a soft abdomen, save in one genus with an uncanny resemblance to soldier beetles.
The family's common name stems from the prominent ridges and fine cross-ridges on the forewings, which form a reticulated pattern that catches the eye and conveys a message of foul intent. All lycids are reported to be unpalatable to predators, although at least one unusual group of cerambycids have learnt to love, and emulate in form and colour, such noxious prey. The beetles are also copied by moths, both nasty and nice, as well as other coleopterids, which gain immunity from diurnal hunters unwilling to sample flyers with tell-tale shades and a languid pace. This was just how a conspicious number of lycids haunted the track to Tanah Merah's walled shore one grey evening, floating between the tall grasses and thin saplings to gnaw at the arils of sedges that surged from the stiffling shadow of weedy trees. These beetles, along with a pair found in copula further inland, are probably part of a ring of species in the subfamily Metriorrhynchinae, which differ significantly in genital details but converge in general appearance. Metriorrhynchus is also at home in dry, open spaces; this may account for its prevalence in secondary habitats and the ease with which the beetles flaunt their veins and tempt fate on the fringes of suburban visibility.
A very different tribe of lycids dwell in the deeper corners of local reserves, out of sight for the most part and wholly absent from the natural cartography of park users who imagine themselves alone amid invisible abundance. Two species of Duliticola have been spotted in Singapore, and there are probably many more in the region. The one above, a beast a good two-and-a-half inches long, resided on a damp log at Danau Girang Field Centre by the Kinabatangan River in Sabah, Malaysia, where it emerged at night to prowl the mossy contours in the company of small, black tenebrionids.
These bizarre insects, which look similar to the females of paedogenetic fireflies but lack the ability to glow, came to the attention of western entomologists in the early 19th century, who thought they recalled long-extinct marine arthropods but rightly deemed them the larvae of a yet-unknown bug. The mystery was unravelled by Swedish explorer Eric Mjöberg, who collected numerous specimens in Borneo, raised them on "old rotten wood" and found some to be females who produced non-viable eggs. Though not the first to discover the latter fact, Mjöberg was persistent enough to set up baited stations to attract the putative males, which turned up to be "a pitiable little, blue-black creature... with gigantic eyes and distinctive antennae, a well-made beetle in every way." The female presents an altogether alien visage, with her carapace-like thoracic plates and a vermiform abdomen bearing long, curved processes. The tiny head can be retracted into the prothorax, but the larviforms also give off a "maladorous liquid" when molested. Now believed to feed on the aufwuchs of decaying logs, these aberrant beetles eke a living in refugia where the air remains wet even when the trees fall with enough regularity to sustain a community reliant on both the dead and the growing.
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