Two strange rare beetles
IN 1944, Albert Brookes described and sketched two of New Zealand’s strangestlooking beetles, both of them very rare and localised.
Maoripamborus fairburni
Brookes, 1944 (family: Carabidae), a ground beetle 21mm long, is found very occasionally only in Northland, near the Waipoua Forest. I saw individuals in 1978 near Waimatenui, but have not seen any since. The head is very narrowed and elongated and the prothorax strangely narrowed in front, like Eurasian snaileating ground beetles that use this modification to penetrate snail shells. I saw one individual eat a native snail, and found dead individuals with their heads snapped off near tiger beetle burrows. One was found with its head in the burrow of a woodboring beetle larva. I concluded that, despite its resemblance to obligate snaileating carabids, M. fairburni is a generalist predator of invertebrates that, at times, eats beetle larvae. Its Australian relatives do not eat snails.
The other strange beetle illustrated by Brookes in 1844 is Saphobiamorpha maoriana
Brookes, 1944 (family: Scarabaeidae; subfamily: Scarabaeinae). This 13mmlong flightless scarab is dull black, thickset, strongly sclerotised and oddly flat on top. The front of its prothorax is unusually wide. When first seen, it looks like a darkling beetle (family: Tenebrionidae) until one notices the clubbed antennae and curved toothed front tibiae. Brookes’ first specimen was taken in 1910 from the body of a dead kea. Further individuals were found at 884m on top of Mount Greenland, Ross, Westland. In 1985 I saw live individuals on Secretary Island, Fiordland, on the forest floor, near sea level. Here, the beetle walked on the forest floor at night near Gut Hut. It was not uncommon at night on nearby Bauza and tiny Seymour islands, which had never been browsed by mammals, but could not be found in the browsed forest on the mainland sides of Doubtful and Thompson sounds.
Both of these beetles should be studied, their behaviour and way of life ascertained, their life histories worked out, and their larvae described.