Dew Beetles

Overview

Dew beetles live in the cracks of the glassed ground and the stony flats of the Glassbelt Interior. In the cold hour before sunrise, when a thin mist forms over the pans and the fused stone, they climb out, stand on their heads into the air, and drink the dew that gathers on their backs. They are the salt foxes' main food and a crosser's sign of where dew forms.

Appearance

A dew beetle is the size of a thumbnail, round and domed, with long thin legs. Its back is black with a sheen like oil on water, green, violet, and gold in the low sun, and ridged with rows of tiny bumps. In the dawn they stand in rows on the crests of stones and glassy ridges, back legs raised high and heads low, and a field of them catches the first light like scattered beads. They make no sound and smell faintly of vinegar when handled.

Habitat and Range

They live only in the true desert, in the cracks of glassed ground, the edges of furnace scars, and the stony flats and old shorelines of the pans, where the night is cold enough for dew. They are commonest where the mist forms most often: low ground near the old sea floor and the fused surfaces that cool fastest at night.

Behaviour and Temperament

They spend the day deep in cracks and under stones, out of the heat, and eat what the wind brings: seeds, dead insects, scraps of plant. They come out only at night and at dawn. They are harmless and indifferent to people, and do not bite.

Abilities

A dew beetle drinks from the air. The bumps on its back catch the mist, the droplets swell and run together, and the water runs down the grooves of its back to its mouth. A beetle can drink its fill on a morning when a person would find no water anywhere.

Life Cycle

Females lay their eggs in the sand at the base of cracks, and the larvae live underground for most of a year before emerging as beetles. A beetle lives a year or two.

Uses and Dangers

Crossers read them. Where dew beetles gather at dawn, dew forms, and a cloth spread on the stones there before sunrise can be wrung out for a few mouthfuls, which on the glassed ground can be the difference between living and not. Beetles crushed in the mouth give a little bitter moisture, and the desperate have eaten them. They do no harm.

Lore and Belief

Salvagers call them beads of the dead sea, and say each one drinks a drop of the inland sea that was lost when the salt-people's worship killed it. On the old sea floor some crossers will not crush them, holding that to do so offends the Salt-Witch. The Kindreds treat a field of dew beetles on glassed ground as a sign that the fire in it has gone out; on the deepest furnace scars, where the ground is said to hold its heat, there are none.

Where It Appears

• Overview: Animals