(a species of false darkling-beetle)
Basis for Tasmanian occurrence
Semmens, T.D., McQuillan, P.B. & Hayhurst, G. (1992). Catalogue of the Insects of Tasmania. Government of Tasmania: Department of Primary Industry, 104 pp. (as Orchesia minuta).
TMAG collections
Classification
Order: Coleoptera
Suborder: Polyphaga
Superfamily: Tenebrionoidea
Family: Melandryidae
Subfamily: Melandryinae
Morphology
Typical length (mm): 1.6
Flightedness: winged and assumed capable of flight
Ecology
Assumed larval feeding: fungus-feeder
Association with dead wood or old trees: obligately saproxylic.
Collection method(s) for TMAG material: — Baited trapping (funnel trap) — Emergence trapping from cut billets of Eucalyptus obliqua (Harrison, 2007) — Flight intercept trapping (trough below Malaise trap) — Hand collection (substrate not specified) — Knockdown fogging of canopy of Acacia melanoxylon — Knockdown fogging of canopy of Athrotaxis selaginoides — Knockdown fogging of canopy of Eucalyptus obliqua — Knockdown fogging of canopy of Nothofagus cunninghamii — Knockdown fogging of canopy of Nothofagus gunnii — Malaise trapping — Pitfall trapping — Sticky trapping on Eucalyptus obliqua — Vane trapping.
Source ecological literature:
Grove, S.J. (2009b). Beetles and fuelwood harvesting: a retrospective study from Tasmania’s southern forests. Tasforests 18: 77-99.
Harrison, K.S. (2007). Saproxylic beetles associated with habitat features in Eucalyptus obliqua trees in the southern forests of Tasmania. PhD thesis, Dept. of Zoology, Univ. of Tasmania, Hobart.
