Blue woolly hair beetle

Blue woolly hair beetle
Fig. 1: Blue woolly hair beetle ( Dasytes caeruleus )
Systematics
Order : Beetle (Coleoptera) Subordination : Polyphaga Superfamily : Cleroidea Family : Woolly hair beetles (Dasytidae) Genre : Dasytes Type : Blue woolly hair beetle
Scientific name
Dasytes caeruleus
( De Geer , 1774)

The blue woolly hair beetle ( Dasytes caeruleus , Syn . : Dasytes cyaneus ) is a beetle from the family of woolly hair beetles . It is usually bright metallic blue and reaches a height of five to six millimeters. In Germany, it is only included in the Red Lists in Saxony-Anhalt, where it is classified as endangered.

The species name caeruleus ( Latin caerūlĕus = blue) as well as the synonym cyaneus indicate the color of the beetle. The generic name Dasytes (from ancient Greek δασύς, dasýs, shaggy) alludes to the beetle's distinct hairiness. The species-rich genus is represented in Europe with five sub-genera and worldwide with ten sub-genera. The kind cerulaeus is counted to the subgenus Metadasytes , which is represented in Europe with two kinds. The species was first described by De Geer in 1774 and placed in the genus Telephorus established by Schaeffer in 1766 , which contains the most common Cantharids. The genus Dasytes was not defined until 1799.

	Fig. 3: side view
Fig. 2: Front view
Fig. 4: Pronotum	Fig. 5: Bottom
	Fig. 6: Tarsi of the forelegs left from above, right from below The heart-shaped widening of the 1st to 3rd limb encompasses the base of the following limb (curvature due to drying)

Characteristics of the beetle

The beetle belongs to the Malacodermata family group , which includes families with species whose bodies are only slightly sclerotized . Legs and antennae are black. The rest of the body is metallic blue to green, in rare cases dark.

The head shield is separated by a fine line and is usually visible from above (only visible in Fig. 2 at higher resolution). The eleven-link antennae are turned in front of the eyes and are black haired. The antennae are all about the same size. With the exception of the first two links, they are widened inwards (triangular, sawn). The antennae are shorter and more compact in the females than in the males. In the latter, the antennae protrude beyond the middle of the body.

The eyes are slightly outlined towards the antennae (Fig. 2). They are very fine and have short hairs.

The lip probes are short, the end link long, egg-shaped with a crooked tip. The four-link jaw probes are thread-shaped with a very small base link. The second link is longer than the third. The end link is the longest, thickened in the middle and also truncated at an angle at the end.

The pronotum (Fig. 4) is sharply edged (Fig. 3) and moderately dense with dots . At most it is a little wrinkled, the distances between the points are rather smooth.

The elytra in the male are approximately parallel, in the female they widen slightly towards the rear. They are more than twice as long as they are wide and rounded off at the end. The shaggy double hair consists of erect shorter bristles and a longer, also protruding basic hair. It is only moderately dense.

The front hip cavities are open at the back. The front hips are pendulous in the shape of a cone and touch on the inside (Fig. 5). The rear hips, on the other hand, are horizontal. They almost touch. All tarsi are five-part. The first three segments of the tarsi are widened distally in the shape of a heart; The fourth tarsal link is significantly narrower and shorter than the third (Fig. 6). In contrast to the genus Aplocnemus, the claws have no lobed, membranous appendages (Fig. 6).

biology

The species is counted to the guild of the reclaimed wood colonists. It does not attack healthy parts of trees or freshly felled wood. It occurs montane in deciduous forests and on the edge of them, especially in the presence of beeches . The beetles can be found on flowering bushes, in brushwood piles, on mossed trunks and in white rotten wood.

The larvae are white, very hairy and six-legged. They hunt for insect larvae in dead tree parts. They attack both hardwood and softwood. Horn spikes, i.e. dead branches that have become very hard due to drying out, are named as the place of development, but also mistletoe wood with bark beetle infestation. When looking for food they can also gnaw wood in wood flour. The dolls' cradles lie in the bark. The beetle hatches in spring.

The beetles eat pollen from various plants, especially hawthorn .

Distribution and occurrence

The beetles appear early in the year. You can find them on flowers and grass near the forest or on the breeding trees. The species is distributed throughout Europe, but is absent in the north. It is common in Central Europe, only rarer in the East. In the red lists it is classified as not endangered or not very endangered.

literature

• Heinz Joy, Karl Wilhelm Harde, Gustav Adolf Lohse: The beetles of Central Europe . tape 6 : Diversicornia . Spectrum, Heidelberg 1979, ISBN 3-87263-027-X .
• Gustav Jäger (editor): CG Calwer's Käferbuch. 3rd edition, K. Thienemanns, Stuttgart 1876.
• Klaus Koch : The Beetles of Central Europe Ecology . 1st edition. tape 2 . Goecke & Evers, Krefeld 1989, ISBN 3-87263-040-7 .

Individual evidence

1. ^ ^{A b} Systematics, synonyms and distribution of Dasytes caeruleus in Fauna Europaea.
2. ↑ Red lists at Science4you.
3. ↑ Sigmund Schenkling: Explanation of the scientific beetle names (kind).
4. ↑ Sigmund Schenkling: Explanation of the scientific beetle names (genus).
5. ↑ ^{a b} Dasytes at Fauna Europaea. Retrieved February 16, 2013
6. ↑ Dasytes at BioLib.
7. ↑ Metadasytes (subgenus) at fauna Europaea. Retrieved February 16, 2013
8. ^ Charles de Geer: Memoirs pour servir à l'histoire des insectes. Volume 4. Stockholm 1774 ( gallica.bnf.fr first description as No. 8 on p. 76).
9. ↑ Schmidl J & Bussler H 2004: Ecological guilds xylobionter beetles in Germany's nature conservation and landscape planning 36 (7); Stuttgart as XLS (No. 325) ( Memento of the original from December 27, 2015 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. 
10. ↑ E.Ph.Doebner: Handbook of Zoology. Verlag von Wiegandt, Hempel and Parey Berlin 1862 ( webdoc.sub.gwdg.de PDF).