Lumber relict: description, reproduction

The relict lumberjack (Ussuri relic barbel, relic barbel, Ussuri relict lumberjack) is a species of beetles of the beetle family. It inhabits broad-leaved and mixed forests. Sanitation "cleansing" of forests, their mass cutting down, as well as uncontrolled collection by random individuals and collectors of beetles - these are the main problems, due to which the relict woodcutter is dying out. The Red Book included him in the list of endangered insects.

On the territory of our country, it lives in the south-east and south of the city of Raichikhinsk in the Amur region. But in other places the relic woodcutter also lives. Where does he still live? The species was discovered in the Norsky and Khingansky nature reserves, in the south of the Khabarovsk Territory, in Primorsky Krai and in the Jewish Autonomous Region.

Description

His body is black, the elytra chestnut-brown, black legs, periodically with a brown tinge, 2 pairs of hairy light spots are on the pronotum. In males, sculpture and the size of the jaws are variable, the sculpture of the antennae is from smoothed to more sharp. The relic lumberman lays white larvae, their mandibles are black; On the pronotum (in the anterior half) is a red transverse band. It can have 4 small notches.

Lifestyle

Broad-leaved and mixed forests are inhabited by relic woodcutters. The Red Book assigns it to endangered species, so it will not be easy to meet it there. It is not known exactly whether he lives in coniferous forests, although sometimes he was found there. The larva feeds on slightly rotten wood, the adult individual - with the juice of trunks of elm, linden. Adult insects also fed sugar syrup under laboratory conditions; The female could drink it up to 0.5 ml per day. It should be noted that females are found much more often, because they fly. During the day, the beetles are active, they fly to the sources of bright light at night.

In the main, the larvae develop in various thick-stemmed trees - the ashen Manchurian, the elm related, the poplar of Maximovich and the lime of the Amur; Sometimes populate the oak sharpest, Mongolian oak, elm stumpy, yellow birch, Japanese elm, Manchu maple and hornbeak.

Reproduction

The females distinguish a secret that attracts a partner. Copulation of these insects takes place on a tree below the place where the females will later lay their eggs; The copulation lasts about half an hour. After this, the male does not leave the female - he, placing her front legs on her elytra, rises with her along the tree to the place where the eggs will be. There the female lays them in groups or one by one; For masonry, she chooses trunks with a diameter of up to 100 cm. A relic woodcutter can postpone a maximum of 28 eggs. In this case, the adult lives up to one month. It is interesting that after laying eggs, both insects descend a day later to the ground where they die.

The larvae that appeared in the world are bored under the bark. There they lay the passages, then go directly into the wood, while leaving an elongated inlet on the surface. Larvae in the wood are laid sinuous, transverse or longitudinal grooves, clogged tightly with drilling flours.

Egg

A relict lumberer lays an egg with a length of up to 7 mm. It is elongated, oval, narrowed to the poles, aperture-shaped, drawn at the ends; In the beginning it is pinkish, then darkens and gradually becomes completely black. His chorion is in deep, dense cells. Between them the intervals are spiky-drawn, thick, and there are much fewer cells.

Lumber relict: larva

The larva has a body of a yellowish white hue, massive and covered with thin, sparse, yellowish hairs. The head is drawn into the prothorax, the epistome is well delimited. The eyes are simple. Clear frontal sutures, pronounced longitudinal suture. The hypostome includes two longitudinal sclerites widely widened by the gouler plate, which stands out ahead. Clypeus transverse, small, whitish. At the base, the upper lip is convex, brownish, with a rounded anterior margin, with reddish short setae. Raws oblique to the apex, massive, pointed at the tip.

Pupa

The pupa has a stumpy body, a slightly anodized head, pins attached to the sides of the tendril, bent vertex to the ventral side, between the antennae the forehead is slightly depressed, as can be seen by looking at the photo.

The relict relict, more precisely, its pupa, has a transectal pronotum, spread out on its sides with a narrow longitudinal groove in the middle. In the center of the middle thong there is a weakly noticeable longitudinal groove, on which there are transverse wrinkles. On the posterum the disk is dense in the hairy transverse wrinkles, with 2 sharply marked, slightly divergent in the direction of forward rims.

Broad abdomen, strongly narrowed to the apex. Convex tergites of the abdomen, in dense short spinules, on the sides on the posterior margin there are spots of yellow shade in the form of a month. The blunt apex of the abdomen is bordered by a roller.