Article

Beetles

From Munshipedia, the MBRAS digital historical encyclopedia

Beetles

Beetles constitute a diverse and economically significant group of insects across the Malay Peninsula and Borneo, encompassing both destructive agricultural pests and objects of taxonomic and cultural interest. The entomological literature of the Straits Settlements and Malaya records beetles as agents of serious damage to coconut and rubber plantations, as subjects of systematic taxonomic description, and as items of local culinary and folk practice. The species documented in the Society’s journals range from the large longicorn Batocera octomulata of Selangor to the broad-nosed weevils of the Brentidae, and from the tiger beetles of jungle clearings to the palm-destroying Oryctes rhinoceros and Rhynchophorus ferrugineus of Singapore’s coconut estates [1], [2], [3], [4], [5].

Agricultural Pests of the Coconut and Rubber Industries

The most extensively documented beetle problem in the colonial record concerns the destruction of coconut palms in Singapore by two species: the elephant beetle (Oryctes rhinoceros) and the red weevil (Rhynchophorus ferrugineus). In 1889, Henry N. Ridley, then Director of Gardens and Forests for the Straits Settlements, published a detailed report from the Surveyor General’s Office addressing the escalating loss of coconut plantations to these insects [3]. Ridley’s account is remarkable for its combination of precise morphological description, field observation, and practical agricultural policy.

The elephant beetle, a large dark brown or black insect reaching nearly two and a half inches in length, is nocturnal in its habits, flying at dusk to attack the base of the leaf-stalk of the palm, where it burrows into the heart of the cabbage and feeds on the sweet sap of the bud [3, pp. 1–2]. The grub, which is harmless and indeed beneficial in converting rotting wood into soil, develops in decaying vegetable matter; Ridley found as many as forty full-grown larvae in about three feet of a rotten palm-stem, and estimated that over a thousand beetles could be bred from a single decaying tree before it was entirely consumed [3, pp. 1–2]. The grubs also develop in manure pits, cow dung, tan bark, crushed sugar-cane, and leaf mould, making any accumulation of decaying vegetable matter a potential breeding site [3, pp. 1–2]. Ridley observed that trees in the neighbourhood of towns were most vulnerable to attack, while small isolated patches around Malay villages in the interior were usually free from damage, even when situated near mangrove swamps [3, p. 2].

The red weevil operates by a different mechanism: it is the grub, not the adult, that does the damage. The female, possessed of a remarkably long ovipositor, deposits her eggs at the base of the leaf-stalk, frequently using holes previously made by the elephant beetle [3, pp. 3–4]. The resulting grub is a thick, fleshy, cylindrical, opaque white larva with no feet or antennae, reaching a length of just over two inches when full grown, and it burrows transversely through the soft pithy wood at the base of the cabbage [3, pp. 4–5]. Ridley noted that a considerable proportion of palms attacked by the red weevil recover, provided no grub bores through the growing point or sets up decay in the heart of the cabbage; only when the central bud is destroyed is the tree irrecoverably lost [3, p. 6].

Ridley’s report also addresses the counterproductive practice of trimming the fibrous sheath of young palms, citing evidence from Ferguson’s All About the Coco-nut Palm (Colombo) showing that on one property more than one-third of the original plants perished within ten years of trimming, at a rate of three trees weekly, until the practice was abandoned [3, p. 5]. His recommended plan for control centred on making it compulsory for every coconut cultivator to destroy by fire all dead trees on his grounds, and on prohibiting the accumulation of vegetable debris in the vicinity of estates [3, pp. 6–7].

A separate but related pest problem concerned the longicorn beetle Batocera octomaculata, recorded by Ridley in 1901 as a serious threat to India-rubber plantations in Selangor [1]. The grub, up to two and a half inches long, bores elliptic tunnels through the trunk and larger boughs of Ficus elastica, while the adult beetle gnaws bark, bites off buds, and devours leaves voraciously [1, p. 138]. Ridley noted that the species also attacks Ficus indica and Ficus benjamina (Waringin), and probably other wild figs, and concluded that the pest could be kept in check by removing unnecessary fig trees near plantations and carefully attending to young plants [1, pp. 138–139].

Taxonomic Description and Faunal Surveys

Beyond their economic significance, beetles attracted sustained taxonomic attention from both resident and visiting entomologists. Ridley’s 1902 note on Malay tiger-beetles (Cicindelidae) divided the species known from the Malay Peninsula into two ecological groups: jungle tiger-beetles of the genera Tricondyla and Collyris, and road tiger-beetles of the genera Cicindela and Heptadonta [2]. He described Tricondyla aptera as a wingless, deep blue beetle that mimics the large ant Camponotus gigas, and noted three species of Collyris (C. dolens, C. filiformis, C. apicalis) as small, slender, blue or violet beetles found in sunny jungle clearings [2, pp. 129–130]. Among the road species, Cicindela aurulenta was described as the commonest, with dark blue-green elytra bearing six golden spots, while C. fuliginosa has a dark brown key pattern on a cream ground, and Heptadonta analis is a plain dark blue-green beetle without spots [2, pp. 130–131]. Ridley noted that further species, particularly from hill regions, remained to be described [2, p. 131].

Dr. Walter Horn extended this work to Borneo in 1908, describing two new species of Cicindela: C. hewittii, a 6½ mm male from Kuching collected by J. E. A. Lewis in 1903, distinguished by its coppery-brown body with blue-green tibiae and tarsi, and C. spinicollis, an 8⅓ mm female from North Borneo differentiated from C. denticollis by its flatter, narrower middle pronotum and reduced yellow elytral markings [5, pp. 99–101]. Horn also raised a doubt about the original locality (New Guinea) given for C. denticollis, as he had never seen specimens beyond the two types, and left the question in suspense [5, p. 102].

A more substantial taxonomic contribution came from R. Kleine, a German entomologist based in Stettin, who in 1923 described eight new taxa of Brentid weevils from the Raffles Museum collection in Singapore [4]. The work, prompted by Major Moulton, Director of the Raffles Museum, who sent a collection for identification, was translated into English by Dr. Hanitsch from Kleine’s original German manuscript [4, p. 271]. The most significant contribution was the establishment of a new genus, Holotrachelus, within the Pseudocephalini, distinguished from the closely allied Schizotrachelus by the presence of teeth along the posterior margin of the eyes, a very short metarostrum, slender legs with thin tibiae, and a pilose apical abdominal segment [4, p. 277]. Among the new species, Diurus celsus was noted for its unusual posteriorly produced head margin and the thickening of elytral ribs at the apex, characters Kleine stated were unknown in any other species [4, p. 275]. The paper closed with a faunal checklist of all Brentidae then known from Penang, Perak, and Siam, enumerating approximately 45 species across nine subfamilies, with the Trachelizini being the most species-rich [4, pp. 279–281]. This checklist represents the first systematic compilation of Brentidae for the region and remains a useful historical baseline for biogeographical studies of weevil diversity in the Sunda Shelf [4].

Cultural and Folk Associations

The beetle’s presence in local Malay life extended beyond its role as pest or taxonomic curiosity. In 1890, Mr. Hale of Tampin published a brief note recording Malay names, culinary uses, and folk beliefs associated with the coconut beetle [6]. Hale documented the larval names Lembetah and Kelematah (from gele mata, “tickles the eye”), offering an etymological explanation rooted in the visceral reaction the wriggling larvae provoke in Malay women, and comparing this to Forbes’s account of inducing latah by flicking a caterpillar at a woman [6, p. 429]. The larvae were eaten by Malays, fried alive until crisp, yielding a sweet nutty oil (about half a pint from 100 larvae) that Malay women used as a hair-growth tonic [6, p. 429]. The adult insect was variously called Kumbang Jenti, Kumbang Kalapa, or Buang, though these names were applied indifferently to other large beetles [6, p. 429].

Research and Documentation

The Society’s literature on beetles reveals a clear evolution in both scope and purpose across the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The earliest substantial treatment, Ridley’s 1889 report on coconut beetles, was explicitly a work of applied entomology and agricultural policy, issued from the Surveyor General’s Office and accompanied by plates of both species [3]. It reflects the immediate economic concerns of the planter class in the Straits Settlements, where coconut cultivation was a major industry, and it proposes legislative measures for pest control [3, pp. 6–7].

By the first decade of the twentieth century, the emphasis had shifted toward descriptive and taxonomic work. Ridley’s notes on the rambong beetle (1901) and Malay tiger-beetles (1902) are shorter, more observational in character, and concerned with species identification and ecological grouping rather than with policy prescription [1], [2]. Horn’s 1908 description of new Cicindela species from Borneo extends this taxonomic impulse to the wider region, working from museum specimens rather than field observations [5].

The 1923 paper by Kleine marks a further development: a comprehensive faunal survey produced by a European specialist working from a colonial museum collection, with the types subsequently transferred to the British Museum in London [4]. This reflects the broader pattern of colonial-era entomology, in which specimens collected in British Malaya were described by specialists in Europe, and the Raffles Museum in Singapore served as the primary repository for the region’s natural history collections [4]. The faunal checklist that closes Kleine’s paper represents the first systematic attempt to catalogue the Brentidae of the southern Malay Peninsula, establishing a baseline against which subsequent biogeographical work could be measured [4, pp. 279–281].

Throughout this period, the Society’s journal served as the primary channel for disseminating entomological knowledge to the planter class and the wider scientific community in the Malay Archipelago. The shift from Ridley’s practical pest-management reports to Kleine’s systematic taxonomy mirrors the broader maturation of Malayan entomology from an applied colonial science to a discipline with its own taxonomic and biogeographical literature.

MBRAS Sources

References

  1. H.N. Ridley (1901). Rambong beetle JSBRAS 36: 138–139. Read on JSTOR
  2. H.N. Ridley (1902). Malay tiger-beetles JSBRAS 38: 129–131. Read on JSTOR
  3. H.N. Ridley (1889). Report on the destruction of coco-nut palms by beetles JSBRAS 20: 1–11.
  4. R. Kleine (1923). New Brenthidae from the Raffles Museum, with remarks on the Brenthid fauna of the Malay Peninsula JMBRAS 1(2): 271–281. Read on JSTOR
  5. W. Horn (1908). Two new species of Cicindela (Tiger beetles) from Borneo JSBRAS 50: 99–102.
  6. Hale A (1890). Coconut beetles JSBRAS 22: 429.