Family Lonchaeidae

The larvae of Lonchaeidae (especially of Dasiops and Lonchaea) live mainly under the bark of trees, especially conifers attacked by bark beetles / weevils, as zoophages or saprophages. Lamprolonchaea, Lonchaea and Silba have been reared from various fruits and have certain economic importance as pests. Some Silba species have been recorded on decaying stems of grasses ( Poaceae). Some Dasiops species are also known to induce galls on grass stems (e.g. Cynodon) in Europe (Morge, 1967) and Afrotropical grassland habitats (MacGowan & Rotheray 2021). In North Africa, the family is represented by nine species of the two subfamilies Dasiopinae and Lonchaeinae, eight of which have been recorded from Morocco (El-Hawagry 2017; Ebejer et al. 2019; Kettani et al. 2022).