Red soft beetle
| Red soft beetle | ||||||||||||
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Red soft beetles ( Rhagonycha fulva ) mating |
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| Scientific name | ||||||||||||
| Rhagonycha fulva | ||||||||||||
| ( Scopoli , 1763) |
The red or red-yellow soft beetle ( Rhagonycha fulva ) is a beetle from the family of the soft beetles (Cantharidae).
features
Red soft beetles grow to be 7 to 10 millimeters long. They are colored red-yellow almost all over their body, only the rear ends of the wings are dark, and in some animals they are also colored towards the front. Their antennae are long and thread-shaped. The first two links are reddish, the rest are brown. The legs are orange, only the hatchet-shaped and broad tarsi are dark.
Similar species
Occurrence
The animals are widespread and very common in Europe , except in the far north, as far as Siberia and in low mountain regions. They live in fields , meadows and gardens, especially on umbellifers . They fly from May and especially July to August.
Way of life
The diurnal animals hunt for small insects mainly on flowers . Often one finds the animals in large numbers sitting together on umbellate flowers. After mating, which takes a long time, the females lay the eggs. The larvae hunt for snails and insects on the ground . They pupate after a year and several moults .
At departure
Pairing (video, 2m 32s)
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swell
Individual evidence
- ^ M. Chinery: Parey's book of insects - A field guide of European insects , 2nd edition, Paul Parey Hamburg and Berlin, 1993, p. 270, ISBN 3-4902-3118-X
literature
- Harde, Severa: Der Kosmos Käferführer, The Central European Beetles , Franckh-Kosmos Verlags-GmbH & Co, Stuttgart 2000, ISBN 3-440-06959-1
- Jiři Zahradnik, Irmgard Jung, Dieter Jung et al .: Käfer Central and Northwestern Europe , Parey Berlin 1985, ISBN 3-490-27118-1
Web links
- Rhagonycha fulva at Fauna Europaea. Retrieved July 6, 2013