These pictures show a female of Tragosoma depsarium (Linnaeus, 1767). Tragosoma depsarium is a Holoarctic species. In the Palaearctics it lives in the coniferous forests of Europe and Siberia. 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. Tragosoma depsarium develops in Pinus spp. and sometimes 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.
The beetle in these pictures was reared from a larva collected in a dead fallen trunk of Picea abies.
MH & MR © April 20, 2006
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