Tituboea biguttata
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Tituboea biguttata , female |
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| ( Olivier , 1791) |
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| different views of a female | ||
Tituboea biguttata is a beetle fromthe leaf beetle family and the fall beetle subfamily. The genus Tituboea isrepresentedby three species in Europe. It includes 27 species worldwide. The beetle found in southern Europe lookssimilar to the ant bag beetle, which is also more common in Central Europe.
Notes on the name
The male of the beetle was first described by Olivier in 1791 under the name Clytra biguttata (No. 16, Clytre bimouchetée) . The short Latin explanation already explains the species name biguttāta ( Latin with two droplet spots). It says: A black clytra, with two red spots on the breast shield, the wing covers brick-red with four black spots (Latin: Clytra nigra, thorace maculis duabus rubris, elytris testaceis, punctis quatuor nigris). This is explained in the following French description: The breastplate is black, shiny, with red spots ( fr. Le corcelet est noir, luisant, avec des taches rouges). Obviously Olivier had male specimens of the species in which the strongly variable red markings on the front edge of the black pronotum consisted of two separate red spots (picture under web links). In 1808 Olivier described the female of the species under the name Clytra sexpunctata . The name sexpunctata (from Latin sex, six and punctātus, dotted, with six points or spots) refers to the three large spots on each wing cover. The female is also described by Dufour in 1820 under the name Clythra novempunctata (Latin with nine points). Dufour adds the three black spots on the yellow-brown pronotum of the female to the 6 spots on the elytra.
The description of males and females under different names was by no means an isolated case at that time, when the sexes differed more from one another than the females of related species.
The genus Tituboea was established by description by Lacordaire in 1848. It contains some of the species that were grouped together in the Dejean collection under the name Macorlenes. The derivation of the generic name according to Schenkling is unknown. According to another source, the name is derived from the Latin “titubó” = “to fluctuate”, but this explanation is provided with a question mark.
In 1878, Lefèvre summarized males and females under the name Tituboea sexpunctata in a monograph of the Cytrini Europe and noted that Clytra sexpunctata Olivier describes the female, Clytra biguttata Olivier the male.
Description of the beetle
The beetle has a walnut build; like most related species, it shows a clear difference ( sexual dimorphism ) between males and females, both in structure and in color. The body of the male is less rounded than that of the female. The body of the beetle narrows towards the rear, hardly in the female, but noticeably in the male. It is rounded at the front and back. The male becomes six to nine millimeters long with a width of just three to four millimeters. The female is on average a little smaller. While the upper side of the female is predominantly yellowish-brown with black spots, the male has a black pronotum and red elytra with black spots.
The head is black in both sexes, and relatively smaller in the female. It has fine gray-white hair. It is slightly depressed between the eyes. It is dotted with fine wrinkles. The forehead is only slightly arched and has a barely noticeable longitudinal furrow. The front edge of the head between the upper jaws is slightly curved. Under the eyes, especially in males, there is an elevation in the form of an ear. The eyes are large, longer vertically than horizontally, and slightly cut out on the back. The left upper jaw is larger than the right. The upper jaws are significantly shorter in the female than in the male. They are only slightly curved in both sexes and only protrude slightly. The eleven-link antennae are black, only the second to fourth links are yellowish. The first antenna element is thick, the second through fourth small. From the fourth link onwards, the links are triangularly pointed and form a roughly sawn, inwardly curved club. The antennae barely reach the base of the pronotum. In the male they are very robust, in the female they are less developed and less curved.
The pronotum is bald and very finely dotted. It is not wider than the wing-coverts. When viewed from above, it is slightly curved at the sides in front and strongly curved at the back. The rear corners are broad, bluntly rounded and slightly bent up in the males. The base is slightly double-curved, the sides clearly edged, the front is edged at least on the sides. The pronotum has a black sheen in the males. At the front edge there is a wide red to yellowish band that is more or less fully developed. It can only be narrowed in places, reduced to two or three points, or completely disappeared. In the females, the pronotum is a little livelier than the elytra, glossy brick-colored, with three black small spots, which are arranged as a triangle with the tip at the back. These spots are usually weak and can also disappear completely.
The triangular label is quite large, black, indented at the base and very finely dotted there. It is convex at the side and rounded at the back.
The brick-red wing covers are roughly parallel, but noticeably narrowed behind the shoulders. They are about 1.5 times as long as together wide and rounded at the back together broadly. Each wing cover has three or mostly four black spots in both sexes. Two large, rounded spots are on top of the wing cover, distributed along its length so that they roughly divide the wing cover into thirds. The front one is smaller and a little further away from the wing cover seam than the rear one. Another spot is mostly on the side of the shoulder. In the original description, these three spots are referred to as lying on a straight line . Another, much smaller spot is located after the edge of the wing cover, invisible from above, at the level between the second and third spot (Fig. 2). This spot can be very weak or rarely completely absent. The wing covers are also bare. They are moderately coarse and punctured somewhat wrinkled.
The underside of the body and legs are black. As with all leaf beetles, the tarsi are four-limbed. The male's front legs are curved outward and much longer than the rest of the legs. The front tarsi are very large, the first limb is about the same length as the following two together. In the female, the front legs are hardly longer than the other legs. The first phalanx of the foreleg is relatively shorter.
biology
Various oak species are named as food plants for the beetle in Spain. In Greece it was observed to be an insignificant pest on pistachios . The development presumably takes place in the same way as in related species: the egg is surrounded by a coat of excrement after being laid by the mother. After the larvae hatch, the excrement cover is used as the basis for a sack made from larval excrement and soil. Protected by this, the development of the finished beetle takes place in an ant nest, where the larva feeds on remains of introduced prey.
distribution
The species occurs mainly in the Mediterranean area ( Gibraltar , Spain , Portugal , France , Italy , Greece , North Africa, Middle East). Of the Mediterranean islands, Sicily , Sardinia , Corsica and the Dodecanese are listed.
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b c Tituboea biguttata in Fauna Europaea. Retrieved January 19, 2014
- ↑ Tituboea at Fauna Europaea. Retrieved January 19, 2014
- ^ Taxon profile of Tituboea Lacordaire , 1848
- ↑ a b Sigmund Schenkling: Explanation of the scientific beetle names (species)
- ↑ GA Olivier: Encyclopedie methodique Histoire naturelle - Insectes Coléoptères vol. 6, Paris 1791 at GDZ p. 42:34
- ↑ a b c d e f g G.A. Olivier: Entomologie ou Histoire naturelle des Insectes vol. 6, Paris 1808 p. 34 in BHL p. 849 no. 12 Clytra biguttata and in BHL p. 852 no. 19 Clytra sexpunctata
- ↑ a b c d e f g h i Édouard Lefèvre: Monograph des Clytrides d'Europe et du bassin de la Méditerranée (meeting of October 11, 1871) in Annales de la Société Entmologique de France 2nd volume, Paris 1872 p. 50ff at DHL on p. 125ff species description as No. 5. Tituboea sexpunctata and p. 115f genus, etymology
- ↑ Sigmund Schenkling: Explanation of the scientific beetle names (genus) .
- ↑ Eduard Petitpierre, Gloria Bastazo, Javier Blasco-Zumeta: "Crisomélidos (Coleoptera: Chrysomelidae) de un sabinar de Juniperus thurifera en los Monegros, (Zaragoza, NE España)" Bol. SEA No. 27 (2000) 53-61 p. 55
- ↑ Tzanakakis: Some phyllophagous Coleoptera of pistachiao I 1962 Record No. 19640500753 at CABdirect Abstract
- ^ Adolf Horion : Käferkunde für Naturfreunde Vittorio Klostermann, Frankfurt am Main 1949 p. 187
