Black Beetle,

Black Beetle, at once a popular and a scientific term—popular when applied widely to all sorts of forms, from Blaps (q.v.) to the Cockroach (q.v.), which is not a beetle at all; scientific when restricted to a great family of beetles known as Melanosomata in the Heteromerous sub-order of Coleoptera. The possible extent of the term will be evident when it is noted that even when restricted to these Melanosomata, it may be applied to 600 genera and about 4500 species. These Melanosomata (Gr., 'black-bodied') have short strong upper jaws, the eyes to the sides, the feelers usually with 11 joints, the uppermost joints of the legs almost always separate (the anterior pair spherical and sunk in sockets, the posterior lying transversely), the wing-covers often fused, and in these cases without wings, the abdomen with five free joints. They love dark damp places, though a few less dismally coloured, for the prevalent black is sometimes relieved, get out into the open. They mostly have a bad smell. The larvæ are very long and narrow. The familiar Blaps, the Bolitophagus of fungus, the very abundant Hypophloeus, living under the bark of old trees, the Tenebrio, with its larva the Meal-worm, so much used in feeding birds, are some of the commonest genera of Melanosomata or black beetles.