black-beetlen.

1565 T. Cooper Thesaurus Cantharus... A blacke beetle: a knot vnder the tunge of Apis.

1610 J. Healey tr. J. L. Vives in tr. St. Augustine Citie of God xviii. v. 663 Hee [sc. Apis] had the shape of an Eagle vpon his back, and a lumpe vpon his tongue, like a black-beetle, and his taile was all growne with forked haires.

1961 Times 23 May 3/1 (advt.) Biological control of several important weeds and pests of South African origin, such as cape tulip, spiny emex, soursob,..white wax scale and black beetle.

1982 N.Z. Entomologist 7 227 Black beetle, Heteronychus arator..is a major pest of pastures and crops in northern areas of the North Island.

a1793 G. White Observ. Insects in Nat. Hist. Selborne (1802) II. 220 Blatta orientalis... Her house was over-run with a kind of black beetle, or as she expressed herself, with a kind of black-bob.

1844 J. B. Williams N.Z. Jrnl. (1956) 111 One kind of Black Beetle is worthy of particular notice on account of its troublesome nature, and known by the appellation of Kekerere, by the natives.

a1933 J. A. Thomson Biol. for Everyman (1934) I. xiii. 291 Cockroaches are not very black and they are certainly not beetles, but why should we grudge our friends the delight of correcting us when we use the old-fashioned name ‘blackbeetles’?

1952 Jrnl. Polynesian Soc. 61 21 Though the term, as ‘fusty’, could apply to some species of ground beetle.., it is more likely applicable to the stink-roach (Platyzosteria novae-seelandiae), often called ‘black-beetle’.

1996 J. Grenfell-Hill Growing up in Wales 167 This shaking also got rid of all the black beetles in their clothes, quite big ones, long ones. They lived in the timbers down in the mines and were about an inch long.