A drop of gold a little off the track was what led me to this two centimetre-long beetle on a twig by Lornie Trail. In form, the insect, with its scanty elytra that exposed dark wings and an abdomen with two prominent processes, is a marked departure from the norm of its order, though it is still a far cry from the neotenic extremes of female lycids and fireflies. The short forewings recall those of rove beetles, but the robust compound eyes and delicate mouthparts appear quite unstaphylinid in nature. Lymexylidae was another suggestion, but the specimen lacked the unwieldly, faintly zygopteran proportions of ship-timber beetles.
The most helpful clue led to a paper that outlined one Ichthyurus octopunctatus from Java as an eight millimetre-long insect with a largely black head and antennae, but golden yellow face, mandibles and prothorax. The elytra are similarly coloured, save for a black outer margin, while the hindwings are iridescent with a milky tinge. The abdomen, however, is golden yellow and ends in a black apical segment. In form, though not in size, the animal described resembles another mysterious coleopteran encountered elsewhere in the reserves, and the generic label of 'fish tail' certainly fits both beasts. The cantharid, if this is indeed an aberrant soldier beetle, was unperturbed by the interest it aroused and continued its investigations of low shoots, assured perhaps by the bold hues that prompt caution in other creatures and have allowed its forebears to wander with a folly fatal to less vile bodies.