Gray longhorn barbel: pest or protector?

You can meet a gray long-mustached barbel on a summer cottage, if, of course, the cottage is located at the edge of the coniferous forest. Most of all, this beetle prefers pine forest or mixed forest with a predominance of common pine.

It is on fallen trunks or stumps of pine that you can most often notice this colorful insect, presented in the next photo.

As you can see in the picture, the barbel is actually gray and long-barked, so the beetle fully justifies its name.

Insect biology

Place in classification and description

The gray long-beetle beetle belongs to the genus Acanthocinuses of the barbel family. This insect 1.5-2.5 centimeters long has antennae, which are appendages that several times exceed body size: in females 2-2.5 times, in males - 5. There is an obvious sexual dimorphism.

Our help! Sexual dimorphism is a pronounced external difference in insects of different sexes.

The antennae of the beetle are painted to match a police wand or barrier: black stripes alternate with gray.

The body color of the beetle is gray, as its name implies. Dots of a darker shade are distributed over the chitinous cover, and on the head there are four orange dots, visible at high magnification.

Habitat and feeding habits

The habitat of the beetle is quite wide - almost all of Eurasia. The main place of residence is coniferous and mixed forests, mainly where there is a lot of pine. In its absence, a gray long-mustached barbel can also settle on many other types of trees, not only coniferous, but also deciduous.

Despite the love of pine, barbel is not a dangerous pest, because they prefer to settle on dying wood:

• stumps;
• fallen trees;
• windbreak;
• rotting wood.

In this case, the beetles and their larvae feed exclusively on the bark and forehead, without affecting the wood itself and without causing damage to it. This is especially important when the barbel populates a lively strong tree.

In addition, sawdust formed during the feeding of barbel, fill the space under the bark and thus interfere with the penetration of other insects and their larvae into the tree. From this point of view, the gray long-mustached barbel is an insect protector.

Our help! The main pest of barbel is an ordinary forest woodpecker. It is this hard-working bird that picks out larvae from under the pine bark with pleasure.

Reproduction and insect development cycles

Gray long-mustached barbel belongs to insects with a full generation cycle. This means that it goes through four stages of development:

• egg;
• larva;
• pupa;
• imago.

The beetle goes through all the stages within one year; the barbel does not have two generations. Even years fall in which a complete transformation does not have time to happen and pupae, or even larvae, leave for the winter.

Beetles begin to breed in May, when the air temperature in the forest rises to 10-15 degrees Celsius. Mating takes place in open space, after which the female searches for a secluded place in the wood: cracks, chips, old passages of insects.

Attention! See how the previous picture shows the difference in the length of the antennae between the male and the female.

Soon small white larvae appear from the testicles and immediately begin to feed, quickly adding to growth and weight.The body of the caterpillar is translucent covered with small hairs, and its front part is widened compared to the tail.

By about mid-July, the caterpillars reach their maximum growth and begin to pupate. This stage of development lasts for a couple of weeks, and in August adult insects appear. However, as mentioned above, under bad weather conditions, this cycle can be carried over to the next spring.

Benefit or harm?

Above, we have already analyzed the influence of the gray long-mustache barbel on nature, now it's time to summarize what has been said.

Undoubtedly, from the point of view of a pine tree, an insect eating tree tissue is undoubtedly a pest. However, there are two serious counterarguments to this:

1. Insects feed mainly on dying trees and do not affect wood.
2. The vital products of barbel and their larvae prevent wood damage by other pests.

Conclusion: gray long-mustached barbel is a useful insect!

To summarize what has been said, a video from the girl Katie will help us, in which she collected the coolest pictures of the beetle in its various stages of development.