Subfamilia: LAMIINAE / Tribus: ACANTHOCININI
[Photo © Milan Lovětínský]
Acanthocinus reticulatus is a very rare European species associated with preserved forest stands with the original fir (Abies alba) occurrence. The larvae develop under the bark of weakened or freshly dead standing trees. A. reticulatus attacks trees with a larger diameter (approx. Over 15 - 20 cm), rather middle and upper sub-crown parts (up to a height of 20-30 m). The larval galleries are flat, created in the bark, and later partly in the sapwood. They are clogged with sawdust with excrements (frass) and later with up to 8 mm long wooden shavings (see galleries in the fir bark). Before pupation, larva bores pupal cell extending shallowly into the sapwood, the exit hole is clogged with wooden shavings again. The species certainly overwinters the first year of its development in the larval stage. Adults hatch in the summer months (June, sometimes August). A very small part of the larvae overwinter another season. Milan Sláma [❖], like some other entomologists, found overwintering adults under the detached bark, but never in pupal cells. Under these circumstances, it is not clear whether all or only part of the beetles overwinter, nor is it clear whether the adults are sexually mature the first year or after the winter. The life-cycle is published as two years, but in fact, if we consider the time to sexual maturity, it may be up to three years. If we do not take into account overwintering beetles found under the bark, the species can be found in the conditions of Central Europe from May to September, mainly on felled or uprooted firs.
Body length: 10 - 15 mm Life cycle: 1 - 2 years Adults in: June - September Host plant: firs (Abies sp.), randomly in other coniferous trees Distribution: Austria, Belarus, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia, Czechia, France, Greece, Italy, Poland, Romania, Serbia, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Switzerland, Ukraine
The depicted Acanthocinus reticulatus female was reared from larva found under the bark of a dead silver fir (Abies alba) in Křivoklátsko Protected Landscape Area (Central Bohemia, Czechia).
Collected by Miroslav Polcar
[❖]
Sláma M.E.F.:
Tesaříkovití – Cerambycidae České republiky a Slovenské republiky / Cerambycidae of the Czech Republic and Slovak Republic.
Milan Sláma private printing, Krhanice, 383pp, 1998 [ISBN: 80-238-2627-1]. [download]
[Photo © Milan Lovětínský]
Subfamilia: Lamiinae Latreille, 1825
Tribus: Acanthocinini Blanchard, 1845
Genus: Acanthocinus Dejean, 1821
Subgenus: Acanthocinus Dejean, 1821
Species: Acanthocinus (Acanthocinus) reticulatus (Razoumowsky, 1789)