Molorchus minor, a very common and widely distributed Palaearctic species developing in coniferous trees, has been described from ""Europa" as Necydalis minor by
Karl Linné in 1758 [✮]. Larval development under the bark of branches or thinner trunks (diameter 3 - 12 cm) of dying, uprooted
or felled conifers. Before pupation the larvae enter the sapwood and create hook-shaped pupal cells about 1 - 4 cm below the wood surface. Pupation occurs as early as the end of
summer and the adults overwinter in the pupal cells. Life-cycle one to two years. The adults, active from May to August, frequently visit flowers but also can be found on branches of
dying/dead, felled or uprooted host trees or logs and on firewood [❖][▿].
| Body length: | 6 - 16 mm |
| Life cycle: | 1 - 2 years |
| Adults in: | May - August |
| Host plant: | polyphagous in coniferous trees (prefers Picea but also in Abies, Larix, Pinus) |
| Distribution: | Europe, Russia, Caucasus, Transcaucasia, Iran, China, Korea, Mongolia, Kazakhstan, Turkey |
The mounted male beetle was collected in Selbitz environs (Hof district, Upper Franconia, Bavaria, Germany) by Udo Schmidt in summer 2005.
The depicted living beetles were: (ML/MP) - reared from larvae found in Norway spruce (Picea abies) branches in Lašovice environs (Rakovník district, Central Bohemia, Czechia) in winter 2022;
(TN) - photographed in Hungary.
Collected by Udo Schmidt, Miroslav Polcar and Tamás Németh
[✮]
Linné C.:
Systema naturæ per regna tria naturæ secundum classes, ordines, genera, species, cum characteribus, differentiis, synonymis, locis.
Systema naturae (Editio 10) Laur. Salvius, Holmiae 1: 824pp [page 421], 1758.
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]
[❖]
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 [page 120], 1998 [ISBN: 80-238-2627-1].
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[▿]
Vitali F.:
Atlas of the Insects of the Grand-Duchy of Luxembourg: Coleoptera, Cerambycidae.
Ferrantia, Musée national d’histoire naturelle, Luxembourg 79: 1-208 [pages 58-59], 2018.
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