As Eleodes molts to adulthood, it unfurls both elytra and pumps them to full size. They weld themselves together as they harden and soon they will never be separate again.
Perhaps it is natural for us to anthropomorphize - to mourn its loss of flight (not that it would have been able to fly even given the chance. Its hindwings were atrophied from the start). But is its situation actually bad like one might think?
Let us consider a few of its relatives. Not all darklings are unable. Blapstinus can fly, and so can Zophobas, and Tenebrio, and Diaperis. Yet they refrain from it except under the most dire of circumstances, and even being seized and thrown into the air usually fails to count as "most dire". Apparently they are not fond of strenuous exercise.
(Disinterest in flight probably came long before disability of flight in the Tenebrionidae, if you ask me.)
When we wish for wings we are really wishing for freedom much of the time and Eleodes is free. Not against habitat fragmentation; it can hardly cross a freeway without getting squashed (this is why even if you live in its range your park lawn probably has no Eleodes). But its fused elytra trap watervapors like a second skin, and thus it can tread unharmed in lands that could kill you if you were to forget your canteen and your vehicle. It has a domain to itself just like the birds overhead, and is that not a sort of freedom? It's not like there's any grass to eat in the sky.
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