Swallowweed bug
| Swallowweed bug | ||||||||||||
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Swallowweed bug |
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| Scientific name | ||||||||||||
| Tropidothorax leucopterus | ||||||||||||
| ( Goeze , 1778) |
The milkweed bug ( Tropidothorax leucopterus ) is in South and southern Central Europe occurring Wanzenart from the family of chinch bugs (Lygaeidae).
features
Imaginal swallow-root bugs are oblong-oval animals and about 9 to 10 millimeters long. The species is striking because of its red-black warning color. The head is black and has a small red spot in the middle of the rear edge. The primary color of the pronotum is black, the side margins, a central stripe and the front margin have a red stripe, with the rear corners being black. The scutellum and the innermost field (clavus) of the hemielytras are black (with the exception of the outer basal corners of the clavus), the outer field (corium) is predominantly red, but has a roundish black in the middle that does not extend all the way from the outer edge to the inner edge Spot. The wing membrane is also matt black, its edge and a spot in the inner corner are white. The lateral parts of the segments of the abdomen, the connexive, are alternately spotted black and red. The underside is red with black spots. Both the antennae and the legs are pure black.
In addition to the characteristic color pattern, the species is distinguished by a central keel of the pronotum, which runs from the front to the rear edge. The similar Central European species either do not have one, or it does not reach the leading edge.
The adult bugs as well as the nymphs can be confused with those of the common fire bug ( Pyrrhocoris apterus ) or those of the knight bug ( Lygaeus equestris ) and other Lygaeini.
distribution and habitat
The species lives around the Mediterranean Sea, in southern Europe, North Africa and in bordering Asia, in Turkey, the Caucasus, Iran to Central Asia. The originally Mediterranean species, which is apparently bound to the swallow- root family, is rapidly expanding on the Upper Rhine. They usually occur in large numbers at the few sites in Germany. In Moravia (Czech Republic), too, the species has been spreading noticeably northwards since around 2000. More recent finds are also available from Bavaria and Austria.
Way of life
The animals feed mainly on swallow's root ( Vincetoxicum ) and silk plants ( Asclepias ). In spring, the adults are often found on cypress spurge ( Euphorbia cyparissias ). According to Birgitta Sillén-Tullberg, the species is monophagous on swallowweed. According to the results of her working group , the red color is a warning device , the animals are poisonous because they store substances from their poisonous host plants, they are spurned by predators in the food choice experiment (in the experiment tested with domestic chicken). This also applies to a lesser extent when it is grown in an experiment on a non-toxic host plant; this could be due to other defense mechanisms such as volatile chemicals released by the stink glands. However, the birds may simply learn to avoid warning-colored prey.
Taxonomy
The genus Tropidothorax comprises 13 species and is distributed in the southern Palearctic , the Oriental and the Afrotropic . Tropidothorax leucopterus is the type species of the genus. and the only Central European species. In Europe, the second species Tropidothorax sternalis (Dallas, 1852) occurs, rarely in Italy and Spain.
Web links
- Biolib database
- Tropidothorax leucopterus in Fauna Europaea. Retrieved July 27, 2016
Individual evidence
- ^ Eduard Wagner: Bugs or Heteroptera. I. Pentatomorpha. In: Friedrich Dahl (founder): The animal world of Germany and the adjacent parts of the sea. Volume 54. Gustav Fischer Verlag, Jena 1966. on page 121.
- ↑ Carsten Renker: A new northern outpost of the swallow- root bug - Tropidothorax leucopterus (GOEZE, 1778) - in Rhineland-Palatinate (Insecta: Heteroptera: Lygaeidae) (PDF, 357 KB) Fauna Flora Rhineland-Palatinate 11: Heft 1, 2007, p. 219-222, Landau.
- ↑ Petr Kment, Josef Brya, Zdenik Jindra, Karel Hradil, Petr Basa: New and interesting records of true bugs (Heteroptera) from the Czech Republic and Slovakia II. Klapalekiana 39: 257-306.
- ↑ User "Gartenfreund": Nature calendar ZÀMG Citizen Science viewing. Retrieved August 16, 2018 .
- ^ Franz Schmolke, Markus Bräu, Klaus Schönitzer (2006): Interesting bug finds from Bavaria with special consideration of the Coreoidea (Insecta: Heteroptera, Geocorisae). Contributions to Bavarian Entomofaunistics 8: 131-181.
- ↑ BS Tullberg, G. Gamberale-Stille, C. Solbreck (2000): Effects of food plans and group size on predator defense: differences between two co-Occurring aposematic Lygaeinae bugs. Ecological Entomology 25: 220-225. doi : 10.1046 / j.1365-2311.2000.00238.x }
- ↑ Emily R. Burdfield-Steel & David M Shuker (2014): The evolutionary ecology of the Lygaeidae. Ecology and Evolution 4 (11): 2278-2301. doi : 10.1002 / ece3.1093
- ↑ Jürgen Deckert (1988): Tropidothorax riegeri sp. n. from Madagascar (Heteroptera, Lygaeidae, Lygaeinae). Messages from the Zoological Museum Berlin 64: 319-322.