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Friday Beetle Blogging: The Wounded Tree Beetle

November 14, 2008 by myrmecos

nosodendron1

Nosodendron californicum – Wounded Tree Beetle
California, USA

From the Department of Really Obscure Insects, here’s a beetle that few non-specialists will recognize.  Nosodendron inhabits the rotting tissue of long-festering tree wounds.  These beetles are not rare so much as specialized to an environment where few entomologists think to look.   If you can spot the telltale stains of an old wound on the trunks of large trees, you should be able to find Nosodendron.  They feed on the microbes- the yeast and bacteria- that grow in the sap leaking from the phloem.

There are, in fact, whole communities of insects associated with tree wounds.  Several fly families are found nowhere else.  I photographed this odiniid fly drinking from the yeasty slime:

odiniid2

photo details (both photos): Canon MP-E 65mm 1-5x macro lens on a Canon EOS D60
ISO 100, f/13, 1/200 sec, flash diffused through tracing paper

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Posted in beetles, Insect Links, Photography Links, Science | Tagged coleoptera, diptera, entomology, Flies, Nature, slime flux | 2 Comments

2 Responses

  1. on November 14, 2008 at 9:23 am Modulator

    Friday Ark #217…

    We’ll post links to sites that have Friday (plus or minus a few days) photos of their chosen animals (photoshops at our discretion and humans only in supporting roles). Watch the Exception category for rocks, beer, coffee cups, and….? Visit all the …


  2. on November 14, 2008 at 6:03 pm MC 300M Charlos

    That beetle doesn’t look injured…oh…nevermind. 😛



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