Banded warthog
| Banded warthog | ||||||||||||
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Banded wart beetle Anthocomus fasciatus , ♂ |
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| Systematics | ||||||||||||
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| Scientific name | ||||||||||||
| Anthocomus fasciatus | ||||||||||||
| ( Linnaeus , 1758) |
The banded wart beetle ( Anthocomus fasciatus ) is a beetle from the subfamily of the tip or warthog beetles. The genus Anthocomus is represented in Europe with ten species. The banded warthog is widespread and is also found in Central Europe.
Notes on the name
The beetle is listed under the name Cantharis fasciata as early as 1758 in the famous 10th edition of Linnés Systema Naturae . Linné refers to an earlier description in the Fauna Svecica , and there to an even earlier description from 1736. However, the two earlier descriptions do not yet use the binary nomenclature , so the description from 1758 is the first description. It contains the set elytris Nigris, fasciis duabus rubris ( lat. With black wing covers with two red ribbons). This explains the Latin species name fasciatus (Latin: banded) and the German part of the name banded .
The generic name Anthocomus ( old Greek ανθοκόμος anthokómos) means looking after flowers and stands for colorful beetles. The name wart beetle refers to two pairs of skin blisters that lie on both sides between the head and prothorax and between the metathorax and the abdomen and can be everted.
 
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| Fig. 1: ♀ from above and below | Fig. 2: ♂ from the front and side |
 
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Fig. 3: Excitator, right from above, left a little more from the outside, copy on the far right partially colored; red: secretor protruding upwards; green: groove, deeper than wide |
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Characteristics of the beetle
The flat, elongated beetle reaches a length of three to 3.5 millimeters. His body is only weakly sclerotized and hairy, lying flat.
The head is green-black, the forehead flat and slightly indented in front. The eleven-limbed antennae are as long as the head and pronotum together and deflected in front of the eyes . They are black, the first link at the top, the second and third link on the underside, lightened reddish-yellow. The antennae are slightly widened or slightly sawn to the front. In the male, the fifth to eleventh limb has a delicate longitudinal membrane above and below the enlargement, the edge of which is finely sawn. The membranes form an angle of approximately 120 ° to one another. They can hardly be seen on the dried material.
The upper lip is about as long as it is wide and slightly rounded at the front. The upper jaws have a two-tooth tip. The jaw probes are thread-shaped and have a pointed end link. The lip buttons are short, the second and third links are the same length.
The pronotum is the same color as the head and is evenly arched flat. It is about the same length as it is wide and slightly narrower than the elytra. The base and the front edge are slightly rounded outwards, the sides are almost parallel when viewed from above. The corners are rounded, the rear edge slightly curved.
The label is very small, rounded to triangular and black.
The wing-coverts, which are matt black in their basic color, have a red cross-band behind the middle, interrupted at the seam , and are also red at the top. The red areas can also be yellow-red or occupy the greater part of the wing covers. In the regalis variant , the red areas of the elytra are bordered in white. The elytra are almost parallel, slightly expanded towards the rear and individually rounded at the rear. They are flat arched, the seam pressed in.
At the tip of the elytron of the males there are so-called excitators, organs that are used for stimulation in connection with copulation. The excitators consist of several parts that are axially symmetrical to the wing cover seam on both wing covers. Each wing cover ends in the male with a thin but hard, slightly arched plate that is positioned vertically upwards and perpendicular to the longitudinal axis of the body (uncolored in Fig. 3). On the top of this plate (facing forwards and on the inside) is a pore field that exudes the active ingredients perceived by the female's lip probe. On the side facing the corresponding plate of the other wing cover, the plate is extended at the base to form an upwardly protruding tongue that ends in a tapering tuft of closely spaced hair. The tongues and tufts of hair on the two wing covers lie closely parallel to each other and are called secretion givers (clearly visible on the left in Fig. 3, tinted red on the right). When alive, the secretion givers do not touch each other, but when drying they twist and, like other thin-skinned skeletal parts, change their shape and position to one another. In the secretion giver two gland ducts open at different heights, from which the secretions from the gland complex in the wing crash flow out. The secretion givers protrude into the female's oral cavity during certain sections of the courtship and are nibbled by the latter. The plate and secretion dispenser are connected to the wing cover by a very thin, translucent groove that is deeper than it is wide (tinted green in Fig. 3 on the right). In front of the groove there is an oval, darkly pigmented field, which is surrounded by short bristle hairs (only the edge is visible on the left in Fig. 3, not tinted on the right). Excretions are secreted into this pore field, which act via the jaws of the female.
The legs are black, the tip of the fore legs reddish yellow. All tarsi are five-part.
The posterior abdominal sternites have a light border (Fig. 1 below). A description and drawings of the ninth abdominal segment and the male genital organs can be found in Verhoeff.
biology
The larvae are predatory. They hunt other insect larvae living in the wood. The adult animals eat mushroom mycelium and spores that they find on fungal branches. They appear in spring for a few weeks, in temperate climates also in early spring in apartments. They are mainly found on flowers, often from umbellifers . After about two weeks of mature eating , the animals become sexually active for about a week.
They fly on the leaves of nearby shrubs and trees to reproduce. The pairing is preceded by an extensive courtship, which is known as the taste salt because of the important role of flavors. The females prefer to sit motionless on the underside of leaves. The males, on the other hand, look around for females. Often they change the starting point of their search by flying a short distance. This behavior is far less common in females.
A meeting happens by chance, the animals recognize the conspecifics optically, but not the gender of the opposite. In order to recognize the sex it is sufficient that the male briefly touches the female with the antennae. The female may move away, then the male vigorously tries to find the female again. The actual courtship begins when the partners face each other head to head. The animals often remain in this position for longer. However, the antennae are in constant vibrating motion and show that the animals are communicating with one another and are becoming increasingly aroused. Then they carefully approach each other and only feel each other with their antennae. When this mutual palpation intensifies, the male suddenly turns 180 ° and presents his excitator to the female's taste organs. Usually the female bites into the structures of the excitator, occasionally also into the wing covers, then the male tries to position the excitator so that the jaw and lip probes come to lie in the areas in which the glands excrete the flavors, while the Secretion dispenser can be pushed directly into the mouth opening.
After the female has been exposed to the male flavors in this way, the male turns again by 180 ° and touches the female from the front with his feelers. These two position changes can be repeated several times until both partners are sufficiently irritated. Then a phase of touching with the antennae is followed by a rotation of the female by 180 ° so that the male is in front of the end of the female's body. Now the male checks with one bite whether the female is really ready to mate. In response to the bite, the female moves away or pauses and lets the male mount her. The simplest chain of reactions (without repetitions) was also observed: males and females feel each other with their feelers → the male turns around and presents his excitator → the female bites into the excitator → the female turns around, the male turns → that Male testively bites the female → the female does not flee. In any case, after the female has allowed the male to mount, the mating is carried out and the penis is inserted into the abdomen of the female. The female remains motionless while the male rears up until the two bodies form an angle of 90 °. Then the male can sink backwards until the two bodies are in a straight line, the rear ends copulating, the female lying on his stomach, the male lying on his back. The couple stayed that way for several minutes. The male or the female can first awaken from this paralysis of copulation. If the male becomes active as the first partner, he repeats the last movements in the opposite direction until he lies on the back of the female. Then it pulls the penis out of the female's abdomen. If, on the other hand, the female first awakens out of rigidity, then she moves forward and drags the male behind her. At the same time, it tries to brace itself against the male with the middle and rear pair of legs until the separation succeeds.
distribution
The species is widespread in most of Europe and can be found in central and southern Europe as well as southern northern Europe. In the west it is only absent in Portugal and the Canary Islands , in the south it is found in Spain , Italy and Greece , in the north the distribution area extends to Norway , Sweden , Finland and northern European Russia . However, the species is absent in a broad strip in the east, which extends from the Baltic states via Bulgaria , Romania , and Central and Eastern European Russia to the Mediterranean with Croatia , Slovenia , Bosnia , Herzegovina , Macedonia and Albania . In addition, the species is absent from most of the Mediterranean islands. In contrast, the beetle has also been reported from the Caucasus , Syria and Palestine .
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b Systematics and distribution of the species Anthocomus fasciatus in Fauna Europaea, accessed on Jan. 15, 2017
- ↑ Carolus Linnaeus: Fauna Svecica .... Stockholm 1746 p. 188, no. 590
- ↑ Carolus Linnaeus: Systema Naturae .... 1st volume, 10th edition, Stockholm 1758 p. 406: 402 No. 19 fasciata
- ↑ Sigmund Schenkling: Explanation of the scientific beetle names (species)
- ↑ Sigmund Schenkling: Explanation of the scientific beetle names (genus)
- ↑ a b c d e Dieter Matthes: Excitators and mating behavior of Central European Malachids (Col. Malacodermata) Z. Morph. Ökol. Animals 51, 375-546 (1962)
- ↑ Gustav Jäger (Ed.): CG Calwer’s Käferbuch . K. Thienemanns, Stuttgart 1876, 3rd edition p. 379
- ↑ HC Küster: The beetles of Europe - described from nature 8th issue Nuremberg 1847 without page number
- ↑ European beetle -Anthocomus [1]
- ↑ JGKugelann, J.Ch.Hellwig, JkW Illiger: Directory of Beetles in Preussens Halle 1798. as Malachius fasciatus p. 304 preview in the Google book search
- ↑ Carl Verhoeff: Comparative morphology of the abdomen of the male and female lampyrids, cantharids and malachiids ... in Archive for Natural History Volume 60th Volume 1st Vol. 1894 p. 173 Description of the male, article p. 129 illustrations, panel IX below, description of the figures p. 206
