Colored ant beetle
| Colored ant beetle | ||||||||||||
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Colored ant beetle ( Thanasimus formicarius ) |
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| Thanasimus formicarius | ||||||||||||
| ( Linnaeus , 1758) |
The ants Thanasimus ( Thanasimus formicarius ), also Common ants Thanasimus called, is a beetle from the family of checkered beetles (Cleridae). Colored anthers are among the most important predators of the bark beetle .
features
The beetles are seven to ten millimeters long. The pronotum and the underside of the body are red, the head and legs are almost black, and the wings are conspicuously banded in black, white and red. The bell-shaped antennae are characteristic . The beetles are also very flat and very hairy. The mandibles have sloping surfaces on two cusps, which fit together like pincers so that the cylindrical body of a bark beetle can be gripped very well.
Similar species
- Red-legged beetle ( Thanasimus femoralis - Syn . : T. rufipes Brahm , T. pectoralis Fuss )
- Clerus mutillarius
- Common bee beetle ( Trichodes apiarius )
Surname
Both the German name and the scientific species name formicarius allude to the fact that the color, shape and movement of the beetles are reminiscent of those of the wood ants . However, there is no further connection between them and ants.
Occurrence
The animals are common in Europe , Asia and North Africa. They were also introduced to North America because of their forest utility . The beetles are found everywhere in coniferous forests and can often be seen from spring to autumn on felled tree trunks or meters of wood as well as tree stumps hunting for bark beetles.
Way of life
Colored beetles are already very active on warm spring days, even if the bark beetles swarm particularly intensely. If these settle on a trunk or a stump, the beetles capture them surprisingly quickly by grasping them with their mandibles and holding them with their front legs. Very skillfully they remove the shield and the wings and then eat the soft parts of the body. Colored beetles look after the book printer , the engraver , the lined timber bark beetle and also the great forest gardener . Thanks to their flattened body, they can quickly get into narrow spaces in the bark , where they like to hide in bad weather. Colored ant beetles are very shy and immediately seek a hiding place if they are disturbed.
After mating, the females lay their 20 to 30 eggs for several weeks between April and June in bark cracks and in the vicinity of the bark beetle tunnels that run under the bark of conifers . The pink larvae hatch after about a week and live under the bark, where they predatory feed on larvae, eggs and pupae of the bark beetles, but also other insects living under the bark. When following their prey, they are also very nimble and move very skillfully in the bark beetle tunnels, although they can also walk backwards.
The larvae, which grow very slowly, pupate in autumn, well protected under the bark in an oval chamber, which they line with mucus. The beetles hatch in the following spring. Sometimes, however, the winter imagines .
Importance in forest protection
Although spotted beetles only produce one generation a year, they are some of the most useful forest insects . Adult beetles can devour several bark beetles a day - mostly females - and the larvae are also avid hunters. They prove to be helpful if, for example, after large winds or snow breaks in spruce stands, there is a risk of mass infestation with book printers. However, they are not able to prevent mass reproduction.
Since the beetles are attracted by bark beetle pheromones , they very often end up as bycatch in bark beetle attractant traps . Therefore, these traps must be checked regularly and the unintentionally caught hunters released again. Control methods such as insecticide piles or catch wood baited with attractant are therefore disadvantageous for beetles.
literature
- Bohumil Starý, Pavel Bezdecka, Miroslav Capek, Petr Starý, Georg Benz, et al .: Atlas of useful forest insects . Ferdinand Enke, Stuttgart 1990, ISBN 3-432-97121-4 , p. 37 u. 76
- Jiri Zahradník et al .: Beetles . Bertelsmann, Gütersloh 1976, p. 74
- R. Gauss: The colored ant beetle Thanasimus (Clerus) formicarius Latr. as a bark beetle enemy . In: Gustav Wellenstein : The great bark beetle calamity in southwest Germany 1944-1951. Reports and studies on the way of life, epidemiology and control of the bark-breeding beetles on spruce and fir , Forest Protection Agency Southwest, Ringingen 1954, pp. 417-429
Movie
- Thanasimus formicarius (Cleridae) - preying and eating bark beetles . IWF film documentary by Gerhard Gries, Göttingen 1979/1981, color, approx. 10 minutes, with an accompanying publication by Gerhard Gries - the silent film shows how a hay beetle recreates bark beetles and how he is a printer (Ips typographus) and engraver (Pityogenes chalcographus ) prey on and eats.
Web links
- Colored ant beetles at insektenbox.de (with photo)
- Video: Colored ant beetles . Institute for Scientific Film (IWF) 2005, made available by the Technical Information Library (TIB), doi : 10.3203 / IWF / C-12523 .
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b c Bohumil Starý, Pavel Bezdecka, Miroslav Capek, Petr Starý, Georg Benz, et al .: Atlas of useful forest insects . Ferdinand Enke, Stuttgart 1990, ISBN 3-432-97121-4 , p. 76
- ↑ a b Jiri Zahradník, et al .: Käfer . Bertelsmann, Gütersloh 1976, p. 74
- ↑ Bohumil Starý, Pavel Bezdecka, Miroslav Capek, Petr Starý, Georg Benz, et al .: Atlas of useful forest insects . Ferdinand Enke, Stuttgart 1990, ISBN 3-432-97121-4 , p. 37
- ↑ Colored ant beetles - natural enemy of the bark beetles , article at waldbesitzerverband.de , accessed on June 4, 2007 (pdf)
- ↑ Thanasimus formicarius (Cleridae) - Capturing and eating bark beetles , publisher Institute for Scientific Film , (1981) doi : 10.3203 / IWF / E-2556 (film)