The head of C. duplicatus showing the mandibles |
As you can see, the mandibles are well developed as are the eyes so, despite being associated with bark (within a genus often associated with stored food products and thus seen as pests), it clearly isn't always in dark conditions - it may not be as fearsome as, say, a tiger beetle (Cicindelidae), but it appears well equipped to hunt. Although there is a lot of literature on Cryptolestes covering the pest status of constituent species and various taxonomic revisions, there doesn't appear to be much on its biology and ecology. However, Lukin (2010) does note that the larvae of C. duplicatus are fungus feeders beneath bark during the early stages of the decomposition of coarse dead wood.
Moving onto a species I haven't mentioned yet in this series, one other beetle caught my attention today, in particulaer the neat arrangement of hars on its dorsal surface...
Another small beetle - note the neat rows of long hairs and the curved ridges running parallel to the sides of the pronotum. |
That is enough for today - as mentioned before, I intend to keep working on the woodpile invertebrates and have some as-yet unidentified mites, barklice and, yes, beetles to work on, so this series isn't finished yet!
References
Hurka, K. (2005). Beetles of the Czech and Slovak Republics. Kabourek, Zlin.
Lukin, V. (2010). Species structure of the saproxylic beetles assemblages in the protected territories of Belarus.Muzeul Olteniei Craiova. Oltenia. Studii şi comunicări. Ştiinţele Naturii 26(2): 155-160.
Keep going Dave, there's plenty of bacteria to find once you've run out of the big stuff :-) Thanks for some fascinating species so far.
ReplyDeleteI might try some microfungi... after all, the 'Who ate my glue-pot' post is about Penicillium and Aspergillis and has by far the most pageviews of anything on my blog...
ReplyDelete