Tragosoma depsarium, a widely distributed Palaearctic species living in the coniferous forests, has been described as Cerambyx depsarius from Sweden by Carl Linné in 1767 [❖]. T. depsarium has been considered a Holoarctic species for centuries, but according to a recent work by Serge Laplante (2017), North American populations are separate taxa [▽]. In Europe it reaches the Pyrenees in the SW and the mountain Olympus (Greece) in the SE. In Central Europe, however, it certainly belongs to the rarest longhorn beetle species [★]. However, thanks to the use of traps with Tragosoma sex pheromone [✧], today we find that the abundance of the species is higher in suitable localities than we expected. Tragosoma depsarium develops in Pinus spp. and also in Norway spruce (Picea abies). Larvae of Tragosoma depsarium feed primarily in the decaying sapwood of dead, fallen trunks, and occasionally in old stumps (cf. Figures 1 - 3). The development period lasts at least three years. Pupation takes place in the wood and adults appear from the end of June to August (middle of July to August in Central Europe) and are active during the night.

Body length:	16 - 35 mm
Life cycle:	> 3 years
Adults in:	June - August
Host plant:	Pinus, Picea abies
Distribution:	Palaearctic species (Albania, Andorra, Austria, Bosnia Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Belarus, Croatia, European Russia, Czechia, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Italia, Latvia, Liechtenstein, Lithuania, Macedonia, Norway, Poland, Slovakia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Ukraine, Serbia and Montenegro, Siberia, Russian Far East)

The living beetles in these pictures were photographed by Daniel Rydzi in Dobratsch (Villacher Alps, Carinthia, Austria) on August 5, 2019. The mounted specimen was collected in Sweden.