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Attalus sp.
I thought this tiny beetle (2 mm long) was parasitized with something orange that was protruding between the metathorax and the abdominal sternites on the underside of the beetle (3rd picture). It is also partly visible in the second picture. In the fourth picture it was receding back into the beetle. Thanks to Thaptor, it turns out to be a bladder that the beetle extrudes when bothered and probably emits some kind of unpleasant chemical. See Thaptor's comment below. Family Melyridae, Subfamily Malachiinae.
Garden lights, semi-rural residential area, San Cristobal de Las Casas, Chiapas, Mexico, 2,200 meters.
https://uwm.edu/field-station/soft-winge... https://bugguide.net/node/view/959092 "Some Melyrids (in the subfamily Malachiinae) have peculiar orange structures along the sides of the abdomen, which may be everted and saclike or withdrawn into the body and inconspicuous." From Wikipedia.
Spotted on Jul 20, 2018
Submitted on Jul 22, 2018
2 Comments
Thank you so much thaptor! You cleared up a great mystery for me.
It is completely healthy!
The orange thing is a bladder, extruded deliberately. Both sexes have them, and so these bladders probably have a protective function (diplaying bad odour?). The beetles display them when bothered - good image here: http://www.mywildlifefriendlygarden.com/...
(European sp.)
So now to what this beetle is: Melyridae: Malachiinae sp. (maybe Attalus?)