Medically important beetles are
mainly from the families Meloidae,
Oedemeridae and Staphilinidae (Nikbakhtzadeh
and Tirgari, 2008). The rove
beetle, Paederus fuscipes Curtis, 1840, is a
member of the family Staphilinidae, order
Coleoptera (Li and Zhou, 2009). The genus
Paederus is widely distributed worldwide
and consists of approximately 621 species,
with its only absence in Antarctica
(Frank, 1988). The body sizes of the adult
beetles are 7-10 mm long and 0.5 mm wide
(George and Hart, 1990). They have a
black head; the pronotum and abdominal
segments III to VI are orange, the elytra
is metallic blue and abdominal segments
VII to VIII are black. The appendages are
partly orange and partly black. The bright
colors of Paederus are a warning sign
(aposematism) to potential predators that
they are venomous and inedible (Lott and
Anderson, 2011). Paederus beetles breed in
moist areas, wetlands and salt marshes