Hard keratin worship -- Ungulates

[Prompt: An animal associated with, or symbolizing, power]
Throughout the skitter colonies, ungulates are seen as a clade of great power. It's not hard to see why. Compared to the foxy scale of skitters, most ungulates are towers, stepping with weapons that could crush a person's head without thought or effort. Lending an air of mysticism and unattainability to the sheer power of size is the fact that ungulates are not among the animals whose traits appear in skitters. It is vanishingly rare to see the hooves, pelts, or distinctive face shape of an ungulate on a skitter body. It is as if the giants' greatness cannot be contained by the humble skulkers.
There is one exception to the "no ungulate traits" rule. Skitters can develop horns and antlers. This is still rather uncommon, and that lends those lucky genetic winners inherent value in skitter society's eyes. A skitter with horns has something in them, the whispers go, that touches divinity. Through their crown, they have captured a sprig of greatness.
Thus, it was almost inevitable that horned skitters would gradually gain ruling status within their society. Within 2 generations of horns on skitters gaining noble status, nearly the entire equivalent-of-nobility was horned skitters. A few more generations down the line (to sweep out the beetles) and it will be unheard of for a member of royalty to have a naked head.
Ironically, or perhaps simply tragically, almost noo skitter will ever see an ungulate for themselves. Hooved species simply don't exist on the isles of Olua. They don't even get pygmy pachiderms. To see one of these magnificent species, a skitter would have to travel away from the islands -- and, in some cases, off of their mother turtle entirely. Firefly made one such journey, and she saw dozens of species of ungulate. When she returned home, she recorded her best memory of every organism she saw through art. Now, the rest of skitter society will have to content themselves with Firefly's drawings.
Because of the nature of stories whispered through many layers of retellings, the myth of the regal ungulates has far surpassed their reality. Yes, moose and elephants are very impressive and dangerous. But even the far-seeing giraffe is not, in fact, taller than the biggest dragons a few islands over.
Yes, there are dragons living in proximity to the skitters, and they are every bit as impressive as many of their mythical counterparts. But they do not possess the horns and hooves skitters have arbitrarily chosen to venerate.
It really is as if skitters simply worship a core of compressed, hard keratin.
Side thing: Skitter horns do not develop until the morningspring after their birth. As such, you won't know if a skitter is horned at birth. But that doesn't stop them from trying. Hopeful, ambitious parents the islands over check their children's heads for telltale nubs or unusually shaped skulls that may (read: absolutely do not reliably) indicate future horn growth. A whole field of fuzz-flavored phrenology has sprung up around this practice. (And it's allll bunk.)