Beetles Identification Guide

on the anterolateral margin of the pronotum.
Sexual dimorphism: Sexes are externally similar.
Distribution: Probably cosmopolitan. In Canada the species has been recorded
only in southern Ontario.
Economic importance: The species is occasionally reported in stored products in
North America. It does not damage the products directly, as the adults and
larvae probably feed on molds and yeasts. Most specimens have been collected
in Canada from feed mills.
Selected reference
Halstead, D.G.H. 1968. Observations on the biology of Murmidius ovalis (Beck)
(Coleoptera: Cerylonidae). J. Stored Prod. Res. 4:13—21.
CLERIDAE checkered beetles
About 40 species of clerids occur in Canada. The adults are usually found
on foliage, flowers, and the bark of dying trees. Adults and larvae of this family
are mainly predacious, and many species are known to prey on wood-boring beetles
of the families Scolytidae, Buprestidae, and Cerambycidae. In some species
the adults feed on pollen, and the larvae are scavengers.
Very few clerids are associated with stored products. Two of them are
found in Canada. A third one, Necrobia ruficollis (Fabricius), has been intercepted
occasionally at ports of entry, in imported products. Adults of N.
ruficollis differ from those of the two clerids dealt with here in having the
pronotum and base of the elytra reddish yellow with the rest of the elytra metallic
blue or green. In the two species treated below, the dorsum of the body is
uniformly metallic blue or green.
Necrobia rufipes (De Geer)
redlegged ham beetle
nécrobie à pattes rousses
Diagnosis: The species is readily distinguished from the other clerid associated
with stored products in Canada, N. violacea, in having the legs pale,
yellowish to reddish.
Sexual dimorphism: Males have the elytral setae rather uniform and obliquely
raised to subdecumbent. Females have the elytral setae on the striae stouter and
more erect than those on the intervals.
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