Recently, systematic studies of mappings of finite distortion have emerged as a key area in geometric function theory. The connection with deformations of elastic bodies and regularity of energy minimizers in the theory of nonlinear elasticity is perhaps a primary motivation for such studies, but there are many other applications as well, particularly in holomorphic dynamics and also in the study of first order degenerate elliptic systems, for instance the Beltrami systems we consider here.