Ptinidae Latreille, 1802

Berx, Peter, Bosmans, Bart, Dekoninck, Wouter, Janssen, Marc, Stassen, Eugène & Crevecoeur, Luc, 2023, Faunistic survey of myrmecophilous and other ant-associated beetles and spiders in the Belgian province of Limburg (Araneae, Coleoptera, Hymenoptera: Formicidae), Belgian Journal of Entomology 141, pp. 1-61 : 26-28

Ptinidae Latreille, 1802

The common furniture beetle or Anobium punctatum (2.5-5.0 mm) ( Fig. 22A ) is well known as a synanthropic pest beetle which can cause considerable damage to wooden structures in buildings and furniture. It is the larvae that feed on the wood and build up a corridor structure. This may explain why we mainly noted the connection with the ant L. brunneus with a single observation in the vicinity of a L. fuliginosus nest. Lasius fuliginosus builds a cardboard nest with basic material such as small wood particles, while L. brunneus leads a cryptic life in a gnawed-out corridor system in dead trees. There is no consensus as to whether L. brunneus gnaws out the tunnel system all by itself, or whether this ant uses existing beetle tunnels, which it may or may not further process. According to Edward Wilson, the ant’s jaw structure is not powerful enough to dig burrows (WILSON, 1955), but more recent findings contradict this view, with Bernhard Seifert adding that mining the wood is not preceded by weakening by fungi or xylophagous insects ( SEIFERT, 2018). All the collected A. punctatum beetles were trapped on broadleaf trees, a finding that also applies to the other discussed species of this family.

The xylophagous beetle Ptilinus pectinicornis (3.5-5. 5mm) ( Fig. 22C ) is a general, widespread species, which is also evidenced by the large number of individuals that were caught in general in Limburg. Our observations also show that they can occur in large concentrations (Annex) with collected numbers of 64, 77, 82 and 138 on a single location. The mention of only two specimens found near a nest of L. brunneus ( Table 20) is therefore an underestimation or lack of targeted research. For the sexually dimorphic Ptinus fur (2.6-4.3 mm) ( Fig. 22D and 22E ) we not only designate a connection with the ant L. brunneus but also with the arboreal species T. affinis ( Table 20).

Figures

Fig.22. A, Anobium punctatum (De Geer, 1774) (range 2.5-5.0mm). B, Priobium carpini (Herbst, 1793) (4.8mm; range 3.0-5.0 mm). C, Ptilinus pectinicornis (Linnaeus, 1758) (3.6mm; range 3.5-5.5 mm). D, Ptinus fur (Linnaeus, 1758) male) (3.3 mm; range 2.6-4.3mm). E, Ptinus fur (Linnaeus, 1758) female (3.8mm; range 2.6-4.3mm). © U. Schmidt.