The relic lumberjack (Ussuri relic barbel, relic barbel, Ussuri relic lumberjack) is a species of beetles of the barbel family. It inhabits broad-leaved and mixed forests. Sanitary "cleaning" of forests, their massive deforestation, as well as uncontrolled collection by random individuals and collectors of beetles - these are the main problems due to which the relic lumberjack dies. The Red Book included him in the list of endangered insects.
On the territory of our country, it lives in the southeast and south of the city of Raichikhinsk in the Amur Region. But in other places the relict lumberjack also lives. Where else does he live? The species was found in the Norsky and Khingan reserves, in the south of the Khabarovsk Territory, in the Primorsky Territory and the Jewish Autonomous Region.
Description
His body is black, elytra is chestnut-brown, black legs, periodically with a brown tint, 2 pairs of hairy light spots are found on the pronotum. In males, the sculpture and size of the jaws are variable, the sculpture of the antennae - from smoothed to sharper. The relict lumberjack lays white larvae, their mandibles are black; on the pronotum (in the anterior half) there is a red transverse strip. It can have 4 small indentations.
Lifestyle
Broadleaf and mixed forests are inhabited by a relict lumberjack. The Red Book relates it to endangered species, so it will be difficult to meet him there. It is not known for sure whether he lives in coniferous forests, although he was sometimes found there. The larva feeds on slightly rotted wood, the adult individual - on the juice of elm and linden trunks. Under laboratory conditions, adult insects also fed on sugar syrup; the female could drink it up to 0.5 ml per day. It should be noted that females are much more common since they fly. During the day, beetles are active, at night they fly to sources of bright light.
Basically, the larvae develop in various thick-trunked trees - Manchurian ash, elm, akin to Maximovich poplar and Amur linden; sometimes acute oak, Mongolian oak, squat elm, yellow birch, Japanese elm, Manchurian maple and rare-flowered hornbeam are populated.
Breeding
Females secrete a secret that attracts a partner. These insects are copied on a tree below the place where the females will later lay their eggs; Copulation continues for about half an hour. After that, the male does not leave the female - he, having placed the forelimbs on her elytra, climbs with her along the tree to the place where the eggs will be. There, the female lays them in heaps or one at a time; for masonry, she chooses trunks with a diameter of up to 100 cm. A relict lumberjack can lay a maximum of 28 eggs. In this case, an adult lives up to one month. It is interesting that, laying eggs, both insects descend a day later to the ground, where they die.
Larvae that were born, cuddle under the bark. There they make moves, then go directly into the wood, while leaving an elongated inlet on the surface. Larvae in the wood lay winding, transverse or longitudinal passages clogged tightly with drill flour.
Egg
A relic lumberjack lays an egg up to 7 mm long. It is elongated, oval, narrowed to the poles, corolla-shaped at the ends; it is pinkish at first, then darkens and gradually becomes completely black. Chorion him in deep thick cells. Between them, the gaps are prickly-drawn, thick, while there are much fewer cells.
Relic Lumberjack: Larva
The larva has a yellowish-white body, massive and covered with thin, sparse yellowish hairs. The head is pulled into the prothorax, the epistome is well delimited. The eyes are simple. Explicit frontal sutures, pronounced longitudinal suture. The hypostome includes two longitudinal sclerites, widely spaced apart by a gular plate, protruding forward. Clypeus transverse, small, whitish. At the base, the upper lip is convex, brownish, while at the front edge it is rounded, with reddish short bristles. The mandibles are beveled to the top, massive, pointed at the end.
Doll
The pupa has a stocky body, slightly bent head, antennae pressed to the sides, apex bent to the ventral side, forehead slightly pressed between the antennae, as can be seen by looking at the photo.
The relict lumberjack, more precisely, its chrysalis, has a transverse pronotum spread on its sides with a narrow longitudinal groove in the middle. In the center of the mesoscum there is a subtle longitudinal groove on which there are transverse wrinkles. On the metanotum, the disc is in dense, hairy transverse wrinkles, with 2 sharply marked ribs, slightly diverging in the forward direction.
Wide abdomen, strongly narrowed to apex. Convex tergites of the abdomen, in dense short spines, on the sides at the rear edge there are yellow spots in the shape of a month. The blunt apex of the abdomen is bordered by a roller.