Scarlet stub beetle
| Scarlet stub beetle | ||||||||||||
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Scarlet stub beetle ( Endomychus coccineus ) |
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| Endomychus coccineus | ||||||||||||
| ( Linnaeus , 1758) |
The scarlet stub beetle ( Endomychus coccineus ) is a beetle from the family of the stub beetle .
features
The beetles are four to six millimeters long, making them the largest Central European stub beetles. The oval body is brightly red in color. The head, a stripe in the middle of the pronotum, four evenly distributed spots on the elytra (two on the right and two on the left) and the antennae are glossy black. The legs are also dark. In rare cases the pronotum is completely red, and the black spots on the elytra can also be missing. Stäubling beetles are related to the ladybirds . Due to the shape and the wing-cover drawing, the English name of the beetle is False Ladybird : false or fake ladybird.
The species looks similar to the cruciform mushroom beetle ( Mycetina cruciata ), also a stubber beetle. In this one, which is a bit smaller, the red is lighter to an orange and the wing covers do not have large dots, but rather have a black cross mark. The scarlet stub beetle can be distinguished from ladybirds with similar patterns in that it is significantly flatter and the antennae are longer.
Occurrence and way of life
Scarlet stub beetles are mainly found in Central Europe and Scandinavia.
The larvae crawl around on tree fungi , including the violet cartilage layer fungus ( Chondrostereum purpureum ), on which they feed, for example on old birch stumps. They are dark in color and have yellow to orange spots symmetrically on the side of the segmented upper side, on the head shield and on the third, fourth, eighth and tenth segments. Brood parasitism is occasionally chalcids the type Endomychobius endomychi place that their eggs in the pupae drop the Scarlet Stäublingskäfers. The malformed imagines the beetle are then not viable.
The beetles can be found close to the ground on fungal hardwoods such as birch and red beech , where they also feed on mushrooms. The beetles can also be found in rotting leaves and on fungal lattices under the bark. The flight time ranges from April to June.
literature
- Georg Möller, Reiner Grube, Ekkehard Wachmann : Beetles in and on the forest (Der Fauna-Käferführer; Volume 1). Fauna Verlag, Nottuln 2006, page 140, ISBN 3-935980-15-9 .
- Wolfgang Willner: Pocket dictionary of the beetles of Central Europe . Quelle & Meyer Verlag, Wiebelsheim 2013, p. 246, ISBN 978-3-494-01451-7 .
Web links
- Profile of the scarlet stub beetle on insektenbox.de
- Endomychus coccineus at Fauna Europaea. Retrieved June 13, 2011
- Endomychus coccineus at the National Center for Biotechnology Information (NCBI)
Individual evidence
- ↑ Distribution map of the Global Biodiversity Information Facility (English)
- ↑ Image of a larva on BioLib.cz (English)
- ↑ A Chalcid Parasite of Endomychus coccineus, Linn. Article by Conrad Theodore Gimingham in The Entomologist 53, pp. 98ff, 1920. (English)
- ↑ Nicholas Hammond: The Wildlife Trusts Handbook of Garden Wildlife . New Holland Publisher, London 2008, page 74, ISBN 978-1-84773-138-8 . (English)