I wonder how they're so elusive?

most live in various cryptic habitats, nooks and crannies, and don't bother coming to lights ever. great many are active at night, and you have to take a flashlight, go to the woods, and carefully examine tree bark, stumps and fungi that look devoid of life during daytime. briefly, you have to go after them and look in various places or use a variety of traps, baits, and extracting techniques. in some spots a patiently sifted handful of rotting leaves may yield dozens of beetle spp. [often in numbers] you won't see anywhere else. on great many occasions, we still have no idea why this or that beetle occurs under this particular tree but not under hundreds of others on the same patch of land where conditions look the same to us

Amazing to think that means I'm only getting a small segment of the local inhabitants by taking most of my photos at the light, and yet I have documented hundreds of nighttime visitors there.