Fabre, as an active, minute insect, furnished with six legs, two long antennae, and four eyes.
These larvae are hatched in the nests of bees; and when the male bees emerge from their burrows, in the spring, which they do before the females, the larvae spring on them, and afterwards crawl on to the females while paired with the males.
As soon as the female bee deposits her eggs on the surface of the honey stored in the cells, the larvae of the Sitaris leap on the eggs and devour them.
Afterwards they undergo a complete change; their eyes disappear; their legs and antennae become rudimentary, and they feed on honey; so that they now more closely resemble the ordinary larvae of insects; ultimately they undergo a further transformation, and finally emerge as the perfect beetle.
Now, if an insect, undergoing transformations like those of the Sitaris, were to become the progenitor of a whole new class of insects, the course of development of the new class would be widely different from that of our existing insects; and the first larval stage certainly would not represent the former condition of any adult and ancient form.