Macroleptura thoracica, in Europe very rare and endangered but widely distributed Eurasian species, has been described from Carniola (Slovenia) as Leptura thoracica by Christian Creutzer in 1799 [▽].
M. thoracica larvae develop in completely dead wood of dead/or partially dead standing trees. Very rarely, development takes place in lying trunks or logs left after harvesting.
It prefers strong trunks with a diameter of 40 to 100 cm or more. The female lays her eggs most often in the upper parts of dead standing trees (5 m or higher). Larval galleries, clogged with sawdust,
reach a width of up to 17 mm and are situated 4-30 cm deep in the wood. Before pupation, the larvae bite through to the surface of the wood, create a pupal cell and leave a layer of wood usually 1-4 mm (sometimes up to 15 mm) thick.
The life cycle three or four years. Adults, active from June to August, are diurnal and anthophilous [❖][✮][✳].
| Body length: | 18 - 30 mm |
| Life cycle: | 3-4 years |
| Adults in: | June - August |
| Host plant: | polyphagous in deciduous trees, in Europe prefers Fagus sylvestris (also develops in Tilia, Acer, Betula, Salix caprea,
Ulmus, Quercus, Alnus, Populus tremula etc.) |
| Distribution: | from Europe (Finland, Poland, Slovakia, Balcan peninsula) to China, Mongolia, Korea and Japan |
The mounted beetles were collected in Arsenyev environs (Primorsky krai, Far Eastern federal district, Russia) on May 27 - July 5, 1991.
The living beetles, larvae and pupae were photographed and collected in Puszcza Bialowieska (Bialowieza Forest, Poland) by Lech Kruszelnicki.
[▽]
Creutzer Ch.:
Entomologische Versuche.
Schaumburg, Wien: 142pp, 1799.
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[❖]
Sláma M.E.F.:
Tesaříkovití – Cerambycidae České republiky a Slovenské republiky / Cerambycidae of the Czech Republic and Slovak Republic.
Milan Sláma private printing, Krhanice, 383pp [pages 253-255], 1998 [ISBN: 80-238-2627-1].
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[✮]
Danilevsky M.L.:
Longicorn beetles (Coleoptera, Cerambycoidea) of Russia and adjacent countries. Part 1.
Higher School Consulting, Moscow, 550pp [page 333-335], 2014.
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[✳]
Tamutis V. and Alekseev V.:
A survey of Lepturinae Latreille, 1802 (Coleoptera: Cerambycidae) of the south-eastern Baltic region (Lithuania and the Kaliningrad Region).
Biologija 66 (4): 169-235, 2020.
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