The Lyons Share

Rot holes

Posted by Graeme Lyons , Tuesday 4 May 2010 19:42

I've been setting up a series of traps to catch deadwood invertebrates at The Mens with Mark Telfer today. We set up six aerial interception traps and two subterranean traps. Invertebrates were very thin on the ground again today being as it is so cold. However, we did find one nationally scarce beetle. Deadwood has many niches and none are quite so disgusting as rot holes. Small, semi-permanent puddles that form in trees, usually where an old branch has fallen away. The larvae of the beetle Prionocyphon serricornis lives only in these water logged hollows (especially on Beech). The larvae are aquatic feeding on broken down dead leaves and the species is Nb. It has really long antennae for a beetle larva. Excuse the photo, this species would be very hard to see without a tray. The second shot is the rot hole it was found in, sheltered by a Ganoderma fungus.

Posted in beetles, deadwood, The Mens