Beaver beetle
| Beaver beetle | ||||||||||||
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Platypsyllus castoris , after CV Riley (1888) |
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| Systematics | ||||||||||||
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| Scientific name of the genus | ||||||||||||
| Platypsyllus | ||||||||||||
| Ritsema, 1869 | ||||||||||||
| Scientific name of the species | ||||||||||||
| Platypsyllus castoris | ||||||||||||
| Ritsema , 1869 |
The beaver beetle ( Platypsyllus castoris ) is a beetle from the subfamily of the fur flea beetles (Platypsyllinae) that lives in the fur of beavers .
features
The beetle, almost 3 millimeters long, is strongly flattened dorsoventrally and has a yellowish color. The head has comb-like prongs towards the thorax, on which it sits broadly. There are no membranous wings under the shortened, uncrowded elytra . There are long fringed hairs on the back corners of the fore chest and the sternal processes . As with all fur flea beetles, there are no eyes. The 3rd to 11th link of the antennae is shortened like a sphere, they are covered by the 2nd antenna link, which is especially enlarged and shaped like a ladle.
nutrition
The beaver beetle and its larvae live on skin flakes from the host, possibly also on skin secretions and wound fluid. While the chewing, biting mouthparts of the imago ( maxillae to sweep up, mandibles to grind up the flakes of skin) are not suitable for injuring the skin, the larvae with their significantly sharper mandibles can inflict superficial abrasions on the host if they are more severely infested , thus creating a transition to ectoparasitism would.
Life cycle
Larvae and adults live in the host's fur, while the eggs develop in the soil of the beaver den and the pupae develop in its roof. The mating of the females and males takes place at the host. The females leave the host to lay their eggs, lay their eggs in the soil of the beaver burrow and return to the host. After hatching, the larvae also seek out the host, in whose fur they go through three stages. To pupation the larva climbs into the roof of the Biberbaues return from where the beetle metamorphosed again for beaver.
distribution
Platypsyllus castoris is found in the Holarctic in the entire range of the two Castor species, the European and Canadian beaver .
literature
- Gerhard Winter (1979): Investigations into the morphology of the beaver beetle Platypsyllus castoris RITSEMA 1869 (Coleoptera), an extremely well adapted representative of the life form type of fur-dwelling insects . Zoological Yearbooks, Department of Anatomy and Ontogeny of Animals, Volume 101, pp. 456–471. PDF
- Stewart B. Peck: Distribution and biology of the ectoparasitic beaver beetle Platypsyllus castoris Ritsema in North America (Coleoptera: Leiodidae: Platypsyllinae) . Insecta Mundi, 20, 1-2, pp. 85-94, 2006 PDF
- Volker Neumann: Red list of fur beetles . Red Lists of Saxony-Anhalt, reports of the State Office for Environmental Protection Saxony-Anhalt, 2004. PDF
Web links
- Platypsyllus castoris at Fauna Europaea. Retrieved October 18, 2015