About Astylus atromaculatus (Blanchard, 1843)
Adult Astylus atromaculatus have a roughly oval, slightly elongated shape with parallel sides. They are generally slightly flattened, and like most members of the Melyridae family, their bodies are soft and leathery in texture. Full-grown adults reach approximately 12 mm in body length and 5 mm in width. Their upper body surfaces and elytra are finely punctured, and the entire body is covered in fine bristles. The base body colour is mostly black. The pronotum has pale hairs surrounding two large, eye-like black patches on its dorsal surface. The most noticeable feature of this species is the colour pattern of its elytra: the elytra are yellow to orange, with a black median stripe running along the margin where the two folded elytra meet. Two blotches on this median stripe form cross-marks; one is located about 2 mm from the anterior end of the stripe, and the other is about 1 mm from the posterior end. Each elytron also has three much larger black blotches on its dorsolateral surface, close to the lateral margin. The antennae are filiform and made up of eleven antennomeres. Astylus atromaculatus larvae are brown to reddish in colour, and are covered in long, silky setae.
