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Trilobite Beetle (Female), Duliticola hoiseni
Walking over logs fallen over the trails in a tropical jungle trail, I found this on one of the rotting logs. I christened it "Cookie Monster" as it resembles a chocolate chip cookie. They have a flat dark body with large scales over the head, resembling trilobites
Most are found in tropical rainforests, notably in India and South-east Asia.
Spotted on Oct 10, 2013
Submitted on Oct 11, 2013
15 Comments
wow !!! amazing spotting
Really interesting!
What a find!! Thank you for sharing such an incredible creature, kevogecko.
It looks so pre-historic, it resembles a centipede and even a mantis in some pictures I saw in the internet.
Ok, more research: the photo can be seen by clicking on "Photogramma" on this site in Latin: http://la.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duliticola_...
I found a photo of a female in yellowish colour. It's taken by the author of the lates report on the species: <Wong, A. T. C. 1996. A new species of neotenous beetle, Duliticola hoiseni (Insecta: Coleoptera: Cantharoidea: Lycidae) from Peninsular Malaysia and Singapore. Raffles Bulletin of Zoology 44: 173–187>
The report and the photo appeared in the "Raffles of Zoology" from the University of Singapore.
I don't know how to upload the photo, but I got it saved in my computer.
I found additional info in a report of Wisconsin University, gathering all info. The adult females are yellowish-white, whereas males and immature females are dark-brown with cinnamon. So this is either a male or an immature female.
Interesting fact is that the males die 4 hours after mating, the females die one week after laying eggs.
Larvae moult after 5 months but no second moult.
A very interesting insect species it is, endemic to Malaysia and Singapore.
No photos of an adult female yet, but I keep searching.
Link: http://animaldiversity.ummz.umich.edu/ac...
I was wondering what an adult looked like as this appeared to be a larva, so I looked it up and discovered the female remains in this state - that's quite interesting! Now I am wondering what an adult male looks like and have not been able to find a photo yet ...
Great spotting :)
Thanks, Chun for the ID. I think I will still introduce is as "cookie monster" beetle, just for the fun of it. Thank you!
Wow that really cool, havent ever seen one ever in my life before!
Nice spotting and weird insect!
Chun below has given you a suggestion for the ID so you can now replace "cookie monster" by its real name :-)
Very interesting, ancient species
This is interesting because its very ancient and untouched by evolution.
Awesome!! does anybody have a background on these species evolution to look like this!?
BEAUTIFUL!
It's a Duliticola Trilobite Beetle.