Diet

• Adults: Primarily feed on nectar, pollen and plant juices, and are commonly found on flowers and flowering vegetation.

• Larvae: Develop in decaying wood, rotting vegetation and leaf litter, feeding on fungi and small organisms associated with decomposing material.

• Adults generally cause little or no significant damage to living plants.

Range

• Lycus is a diverse genus of net-winged beetles (Lycidae) found throughout the Americas, with particularly high diversity in tropical and subtropical regions.

• Numerous species occur in Mexico, including Guerrero and the Pacific coast.

• Around Zihuatanejo, Lycus beetles are occasional to fairly common, especially during the rainy season when flowering plants and moist organic material are abundant.

Habitat

• Found in tropical dry forest, tropical deciduous forest, woodland, scrub, forest edges and secondary vegetation.

• Adults are most easily found on flowers, foliage and grasses, particularly in sunny clearings and forest margins.

• Larvae develop in rotting logs, decaying branches, leaf litter and other moist organic material.

Size

• Adult length: approximately 8–20 mm (0.3–0.8 in), depending on species.

• Body elongated and somewhat flattened, with expanded, reticulated elytral margins characteristic of net-winged beetles.

• Many species are brightly coloured, commonly combining red, orange or yellow with black markings.