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Updated: June 3, 2025
Remember in the first place that the young Sitaris which we find in a closed cell is always placed on the egg of the Bee. We shall see in a minute that this egg not merely serves as a raft for the tiny creature floating on a very treacherous lake, but also constitutes the first and indispensable part of its diet.
Most of our best authorities are now convinced that the various larval and pupal stages of insects have thus been acquired through adaptation, and not through inheritance from some ancient form. The curious case of Sitaris a beetle which passes through certain unusual stages of development will illustrate how this might occur.
Grappled now to the female bee, the grub of the Sitaris "conceals itself, and allows itself to be carried by her" to the end of the gallery in which she is now contriving her cradle, "watches the precise moment when the egg is laid, installs itself upon it, and allows itself to fall therewith upon the surface of the honey, in order to substitute itself for the future offspring of the Anthophora, and possess itself of house and victuals."
When a paralyzing wasp stings its victim on just those points where the nervous centres lie, so as to render it motionless without killing it, it acts like a learned entomologist and a skilful surgeon rolled into one. But what shall we say of the little beetle, the Sitaris, whose story is so often quoted?
And equally all this happens as if the Sitaris itself knew that its larva would know all these things. The knowledge, if knowledge there be, is only implicit. It is reflected outwardly in exact movements instead of being reflected inwardly in consciousness.
By a Machiavellian stratagem the primary larva of the Oil-beetle or the Sitaris has penetrated the Anthophora's cell; it has settled on the egg, which is its first food and its life-raft in one. What becomes of it once the egg is exhausted? Let us, to begin with, go back to the larva of the Sitaris.
The Sitaris muralis, a beetle whose customs have been described by Fabre in a remarkable manner, may be counted among the cleverest in assuring to its larvæ the goods of others. It puts them in a position to profit by it, and when they are installed they know sufficiently well what to do.
My journey threatens to be fruitless: I see but a few rare Anthrax flies, hovering round the face of the cliff. We will not despair, however, and we will begin by consulting the locality. The Anthophora's cells contain this bee in the larval stage. Some of them provide me with the oil beetle and the Sitaris, rare finds at one time, today of no use to me.
Let us leave the unhappy mother to continue her fruitless task and turn our attention to the young larva which has so adroitly secured itself board and lodging. In opening cells whose lid is still moist, we end by discovering one in which the egg, recently laid, supports a young Sitaris. This egg is intact and in irreproachable condition.
At Carpentras too the Anthophorae lived in abundance; those wild bees with whom the vexed and enigmatic history of the Sitaris and the Meloë is bound up; those little beetles, cousins of the Cantharides, whose complex metamorphoses and astonishing and peculiar habits have been revealed by Fabre.
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