Ear beetle

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Ear beetle
Red ear beetle, female

Red ear beetle , female

Systematics
Class : Insects (Insecta)
Order : Beetle (Coleoptera)
Subordination : Polyphaga
Superfamily : Cleroidea
Family : Melyridae
Subfamily : Ear beetle
Scientific name
Malachiinae
Fleming , 1821
Fig. 1: Excitators in the
red eye beetle at the
tip of the elytra
Fig. 2: Right half of the organ of the
excitator of the banded wart
beetle at the tip of the wing cover

The tip beetles or warthog beetles (Malachiinae) are a subfamily of the Melyridae . In the past, they were placed in the family rank and accordingly scientifically referred to as Malachiidae.

features

The beetles are two to six millimeters long and are colored (green, blue, red or black).

The beetles get their name from skin blisters that can be turned out or retracted again. These protrude in a lobed shape on the side of the front chest and abdomen and are usually conspicuously orange-red in color.

Another conspicuous feature of the ear beetles are the form of the chitin skeleton, the excitators , in the males of most genera . These can take very different forms in the various species . According to the location of the excitators, a distinction is made between 15 types worldwide and five types in Central Europe. Most often the ecitators are located at the end of the wing covers (elytral-apical, Fig. 1). The excitators are secretion organs . The males secrete a secretion in this in order to put the female in readiness for mating (taste mating, gustatory courtship). The females lick up the liquid, causing both sexes to be sexually aroused. The position of the excitators determines the type of courtship. In Troglops albicans , the excitators are on the forehead. The male offers the female the forehead organs to bite into. Then it runs to the rear end of the female and checks the willingness to mate. The process is repeated until pairing. With Axinotarsus pulicarius , the male turns so that the female is presented with the excitators at the end of the abdomen. The male then turns 180 °. The process is repeated until the female also turns 180 ° so that the two ends of the abdomen touch and copulation occurs. In the case of the red flagellate beetle , courtship is not very stereotypical, but variable.

After mating, the female lays the eggs in the old bark of dead trees. The larvae then develop in the wood and feed u. a. of insect larvae .

Way of life

Most of the species in this subfamily feed on pollen and dead insects, but there are also species whose beetles predatorily feed on aphids, for example .

Systematics

The tip beetles are represented worldwide with 3,000 species, 50 of which live in 14 genera in Central Europe . (43 in Germany ). In Europe, the subfamily is represented with 30 genera and around 330 species or subspecies.

The following list gives an overview of the genus represented in Europe and some selected species.

credentials

  1. ↑ H. Freude, KW Harde, GA Lohse: Die Käfer Mitteleuropas , Vol. 6, Page 53. Spectrum Academic Publishing House in Elsevier, Munich 1966, ISBN 3-8274-0683-8
  2. ↑ Bernhard Klausnitzer: Wonderful world of the beetles . Herder Verlag Freiburg ISBN 3-451-19630-1
  3. ↑ Jiři Zahradnik, Irmgard Jung, Dieter Jung et al .: Käfer Central and Northwestern Europe , Parey Berlin 1985, ISBN 3-490-27118-1
  4. ↑ Malachiidae. Fauna Europaea, accessed March 28, 2007 .

Web links

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