Two strange, rare, beetles
IN 1944 Albert Brookes described, named, and crudely illustrated two of New Zealand’s strangestlooking beetles, both being rare and localised.
Maoripamborus fairburni
Brookes, 1944 (family Carabidae), is a ground beetle a little over 20mm long, found very occasionally only in Northland, near the Waipoua Kauri 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 eat snails in their 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 it is a general predator of invertebrates that at times eats beetle larvae.
Related beetles in Australia are not exclusively eaters of snails.
The other strange beetle illustrated by Brookes in 1844 is
Saphobiamorpha maorianus
Brookes 1944 (family
Scarabaeidae, subfamily Scarabaeinae). This beetle, 13mm long, is dull black and very flat on top, with the prothorax unusually wide in front. When first seen it looks like a darkling beetle (family Tenebrionidae) until one notices its 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 on top of Mt Greenland (884m), Ross,
Westland. In 1985 I saw live individuals in pit fall traps on Secretary Island, Fiordland, on the forest floor, near sea level. It walked on the forest floor at night. It was not uncommon at night on smaller Bauza Island, but could not be found 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.