Platycerus caraboides
Small Rehschröter ( Platycerus caraboides, male )
The Little Rehschröter ( Platycerus caraboides ) is a beetle of the family of Schröter. The species is next to the Great Rehschröter ( P. caprea ) is the only representative of its genus in Central Europe.
Features
The beetles are 9-13 mm long and have a flat and stocky physique. They are very similar to the Great Rehschröter ( Platycerus caprea ). In contrast to this, they are built slightly shorter and stockier, the pronotum is dotted thickly and evenly and the throat next to the edge of the pronotum does not disappear at the back angles. The color varies between metallic green or blue. The sensors have a four-membered subjects at the end. In the males, the greatly enlarged mandibles are striking and they have black legs and lower sides, unlike the females, in which these body parts are rust colored brown.
Occurrence
The species is found from central Europe and the northern Mediterranean Europe to western Asia and the Near East. You lack in southern Spain and north of the British Isles and the northern part of Scandinavia, as well as in Greece and in large parts of the Balkans. The beetles preferred medium and flat sheets and is especially in warm deciduous forests, mixed forests preferred book, and in clearings and scrubby dry slopes to be found up to 750 m altitude.
The species is relatively rare central Europe, it is not classified in the Red List of endangered species in Germany, but in individual states as "vulnerable" (Category 3) and " high risk " (Category 2) out.
Way of life
The beetles eat leaves and buds of deciduous trees and licking sap from tree injury. The larvae develop mainly in weißfaulem dead wood of various deciduous trees, especially in fungus-infected and lying wood sections and wooden paths mounts. The spectrum of proven food plants include beech, linden, oak, birch, hornbeam, ash, pine, blackthorn and hawthorn. Their development takes three years, which pupate in the wood.