Rosalia alpina alpina

Rosalia alpina (Linnaeus, 1758)
ssp. alpina (Linnaeus, 1758)

Subfamilia: CERAMBYCINAE / Tribus: COMPSOCERINI

[Photo © Kirill V. Makarov, click on the picture for 4K resolution]

Rosalia alpina is an endangered and strictly protected icon of saproxylic biodiversity throughout its Europen range of occurence. Despite its popularity, information on its habitats and host-plants is insufficient, which may compromise the adoption of suitable conservation strategies. Rosalia alpina has been considered as montane species associated with beech (Fagus sylvatica) in Central Europe, whereas in Southern Europe the species has often been reported from lowlands and its host spectrum is broader. For example, in Bulgaria (Ropotamo, Black Sea coast) we observed its development in living tissue of field maple (Acer campestre).
Lukáš Čížek et al. [❖] published evidence of an elm-feeding population of Rosalia alpina occurring in a lowland beech-free forests in the Czech Republic. This information available suggests, that Rosalia alpina spreads into central European lowland forests along large rivers, and that spectra of hosts and habitats exploited by Rosalia alpina in Central Europe are wider than generally thought. Alteration of its habitat preference has either occurred in Central European populations, or lowland-inhabiting populations from the South are spreading northwards, possibly due to climate change. Interesting insight into phylogeography of R. alpina offers work of Lukáš Drag et al. published in 2017 [▽].
Guidelines for the monitoring of this remarkable beetle, which is protected by the EU Habitats Directive, was summarized in detail in paper by Alessandro Campanaro et al. in 2017 [✧].

Body length: 15 - 38 mm

Life cycle: 2 - 3 years

Adults in: June - August

Host plant: polyphagous in deciduous trees, preferring beech (Fagus), but also in Ulmus, Carpinus, Tilia, Castanea

Distribution: Albania, Austria, Belarus, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Corsica, Croatia, Czechia, France, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Italy, Macedonia, Montenegro, Poland, Romania, Russia, Serbia, Sicily, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Switzerland, Turkey, Ukraine

The mounted beetle (28 mm) was collected in Tellermanovskiy les (Tellerman forest/Теллермановский лес) (N51°20′20″ E41°57′05″; 150 m a.s.l., 9 km SWW Borisoglebsk, Gribanovsky district, Voronezh oblast, Central Federal District, Russia) on July 13, 2009.
The living beetles were photographed in: Bezděz Mt. (North Bohemia, July 19, 2009), one of the last (and strictly protected) locality of this beautiful species in Czechia; Krajná Poľana village environs (Svidník district, Prešov region, East Slovakia) on July 28, 2020; Remetské Hámre village environs (Vihorlat Mts., Sobrance district, Košice region, East Slovakia) on June 29, 2019.
Collected by A. Zaitsev, Daniel Rydzi and Michal Hoskovec

[❖]
Čížek L., Schlaghamerský J., Bořucký J., Hauck D. and Helešic J.:
Range expansion of an endangered beetle: Alpine Longhorn Rosalia alpina (Coleoptera: Cerambycidae) spreads to the lowlands of Central Europe.
Entomologica Fennica 20: 200-206, 2009. [download ]
[▽]
Drag L., Hauck D., Říčan O., Schmitt T., Shovkoon D.F., Godunko R.J., Curletti G., Čéžek L.:
Phylogeography of the endangered saproxylic beetle Rosalia longicorn, Rosalia alpina (Coleoptera, Cerambycidae), corresponds with its main host, the European beech (Fagus sylvatica, Fagaceae).
Journal of Biogeography 45 (12): 2631-2644, 2017. [download ]
[✧]
Campanaro A., Redolfi De Zan L., Hardersen S., Antonini G., Chiari S., Cini A., Mancini E., Mosconi F., Rossi De Gasperis S., Solano E., Bologna M.A., Sabbatini Peverieri G.:
Guidelines for the monitoring of Rosalia alpina.
Nature Conservation 20: 165–203, 2017. [download ]
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 [pages 95-97], 1998 [ISBN: 80-238-2627-1]. [download ]

Monitoring of the Rosalia alpina is relatively complicated in the case of its low density occurence. One way to detect the presence of a monitored insect species is to use pheromone traps. Basically, all species of longhorn beetles use pheromones (sexual or aggregation) for intraspecific communication, and this is also the case of R. alpina. For this reason, we isolated, identified and synthesized its aggregating male produced pheromone, 3,5-dimethyl-6-(1-methylbutyl)-pyran-2-one [✩].
[✩]
Žunič Kosi A., Zou Y., Hoskovec M., Vrezec A., Stritih N., Millar J.G.:
Novel, male-produced aggregation pheromone of the cerambycid beetle Rosalia alpina, a priority species of European conservation concern
PLoS One 12 (8): e0183279, 2017. [download ]

[Photo © Daniel Rydzi]


Subfamilia	Cerambycinae Latreille, 1802
Tribus	Compsocerini Thomson, 1864
Genus	Rosalia Audinet-Serville, 1833
Species	Rosalia alpina (Linnaeus, 1758)
Subspecies	Rosalia alpina alpina (Linnaeus, 1758)

Michal Hoskovec © Last update: 10.XI.2021