User:Jessica Dam/sandbox

Introduction

The flower long horn beetle ranges in size and feeds on nectar and pollen of native and introduced garden plants. It is endemic to New Zealand and its species are distributed widely on the mainland and on some offshore islands. It is a flower-visiting insect that has a celestial blue color that can be up to 8 mm long with a large orange spot on each elytron. It has been known and called as New Zealand’s most strikingly colorful beetle. Females are known to be larger than males and have two or more hairs on the epipleural fold whereas males do not have such hairs. They belong to a family of beetles that are well known as the long horn beetles because off their very long slender antennae which looks like horns They come in a range of colors from metallic blue with yellow spots to bright orange with white spots. They are found feeding on the pollen and nectar of flowers as adults while the larvae live within the wood of trees and they fed on that.

Description

They come in a range of colors from metallic blue with yellow spots to bright orange with white spots. They are found feeding on the pollen and nectar of flowers as adults while the larvae live within the wood of trees and they feed on tree barks. The identifying features includes a hair free, shiny usually dark purple brown and sometimes almost metallic color to them. The overall body color may vary from an orange dark color to brown and black. The apex of the elytra is rounded, and they consist of yellow and white golden spots, but they can vary as well. They grow to about 3.7-7.6mm or 8mm and they have 11 segments with the first 3-7 segments being whitish at the base and slowly becoming darker brown up towards to the apex with the remaining of the segments being dark brown. The top of their legs is dark purple, brown with a white touch of whitish base and their tibia and tarsi are light brown.

Distribution They are widely distributed from the Central North island to the South Island with a few specimens being sighted in a couple of other areas of New Zealand. They are widely distributed from the Central North island to the South Island with a few specimens being sighted in a couple of other areas of New Zealand. There consists of ten different species of them and are widespread in New Zealand. They have been recorded to be found in Auckland, Waikato, Bay of Plenty, and the Gisborne region. Their preferred habitats include living on plants and introduced garden plants in nz such as flax and other native flowers which they can feed on the nectar and pollen. The grubs prefer living under bark or in dead branches.

Lifecycle

The lifecycle of the long horn beetles is interesting because unlike other cerambycid beetle species, study has shown that with their mating behavior, unlike several other beetles that have long-range sex pheromones on the basis of their temporal and spatial distributions on mating and feeding sites and  longevity, study has shown however that such pheromones are not used by the Zorion Guttigerum species (Qiao et al, 2005).Instead it’s the plant characteristics rather than long-range sex pheromones that plays an important role in bringing both sexes together. Being native to New Zealand the larval host for this species are mainly dead twigs of trees and the adults prefer to visit flowers, feeding and mating on the flowers of the various plant species between the months of October and March (Qiao et al, 2005).Male color plays an important role in the mating success of Zorion guttigerum ( Wang, 2002).Males have behavior that protects their territory which they use to fight with and chase away their rival males from feeding and mating sites. Usually, the bigger males win a fight but that is not always the case with size dependent fighting advantage as this does not lead to mating success with dark blue males having higher chances of mating than the yellow brown males. The male simply approaches a female and with his antennae and quickly mounts the female in an attempt to mate. If the female remains still, then or moves slowly then that is a sign that pair bonding was successful and established. If however the female does not react to the males attempt or wants to get away to stop the pair bonding she displays acts of rejection behaviors of turning around quickly and kicking him with her hind legs. When this happens, it shows a failure in a pair bonding with the male, so he goes on to another female and tries again. Study has shown that the males tend to be more competitive when the sex ratio was male biased and more deliberate in mate selection when the sex ratio was female biased (Wang,2002). The mating happenings of the species was done on flowers as well as visiting the flowers for feeding. The females then leave the flowers to lay eggs and the males just stay back on the flowers through out the day. Being a male biased population, the competition between the males for mates is strong. They immigrate at a higher rate from places with male biased sex ratios. The flower visiting species Zorion guttigerum has antennae that is shorter than the body but still longer than those of the females. The allometric relationship between the elytral length and antennal length between sexes of the species may be a way for sexual recognition of the species. Whereas in most cases where male mating success was color and size dependent, in the Zorion guttigerum species this color polymorphism plays a role in sexual selection. The hosts for the larvae are usually ones that are newly fallen or broken hosts as well as dead hosts. The adults feed on plants that are not suitable for larval development and usually have good dispersal ways. The beetles are good flyers and are often flying among flower clusters to feed and mate. Though the antennal contact of the flower visiting species is usually successful by contact of the adult host, visual cues also play an important role in the sexual activity of the Zorion guttigerum species. The effect of body color between females and males are similar and they play an important part in mating success of the species.

Interactions

Zorion guttigerum feed mainly on flowers in New Zealand, most of them being native to the country. Being herbivores, they feed on plants and are native species of beetles from the genus Zorion. The adults feed off on the pollen and nectar of flowers and the larvae of these beetle are known to feed off wood inside freshly dark branches and twigs as well as under the bark of a native plant. They can mainly be found on native plants such as flax, hebes and other flowering plants.

Further Information

The relationship between Zorion species reflect their distribution patterns and are a favorite among insect collectors. Their life span takes about one to three years to gain maturity and once that has done the males live for up to about 50 days while the females live up to around 66 days. New Zealand is a home to about 200 species of long horn beetles, the flower long horn beetle being one of those species. Some of these species’ larvae were traditionally eaten by the mauri’s back then but does not happen so much anymore.

References

-Wang, Q. (2002). Sexual selection of Zorion guttigerum: Westwood (Coleoptera: Cerambycidae: Cerambycina) in Relation to body size and color. Journal of insect behavior. 15 (5) 675-687 s00114-005-0615-3.pdf (springer.com) - Wang, Q & Chen, L. (2005). Mating behavior of a flower visiting longhorn beetle Zorion guttigerum (Westwood) (Coleoptera: Cerambycidae: Cerambycinae). Springer-Verlag. 92, 237-241. s00114-005-0615-3. (springer.com) -Otago Daily Times. (2018). Tiny beetle an NZ native. -Phil Bendle Collection. (2021). Beetle (Longhorn, Flower) Zorion guttigerum.CitScihub. Phil Bendle Collection: Beetle (Longhorn, Flower) Zorion guttigerum - CitSciHub -Schnitzler.R.F. (2001). Systematics and biogeography of the New Zealand endemic genus Zorion Pascoe 1867 (Coleoptera: Cerambycidae: Cerambycinae),with descriptions of six new species. Massey University Institute of Natural Resources. Systematics and biogeography of the New Zealand endemic genus Zorion Pascoe 1867 (Coleoptera: Cerambycidae: Cerambycinae), with descriptions of six new species (massey.ac.nz) -Schnitzler, F & Wang, Q .( 2005).Revision of Zorion Pascoe ( Coleoptera : Cerambycidae), an endemic genus of New Zealand.Zootaxa .pp 1-42. Zootaxa, Zorion Pascoe (Coleoptera: Cerambycidae) (researchgate.net)