One article. This seems to be the defining paper on the subject. What I find a little puzzling, though, is: How do we know? Aren’t there other fast-moving bugs, certainly the flying ones. Also, I would somehow be thinking that a predatory beetle would be following a scent trail if it were tracking food, and visually only once it was really close.
I’m pretty sure I’ve never read that article. Why the hell is the link already clicked?
Anyway, “bugs” aren’t usually big on vision, with a few exceptions. As you say, chemosenses and others can be more important. Most non-primates, non-birds have crappy vision. As a WAG, if they remove the eyes, and the beetle’s behavior is still normal, then that suggests that eyes aren’t important, at least not at this task. Note though it doesn’t say that they don’t use them at all with this method. An alternative could be that they normally do use their eyes, but can compensate if they cannot.
Also, it says “they don’t gather enough photons” at that speed. You could probably figure that out mathematically. Of course, that doesn’t meant that they can’t infer things about location based upon what they did see/sense. Conscious awareness (or whatever beetles have) may not be necessary.