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Photo#624726
sap beetle - Stelidota octomaculata

sap beetle - Stelidota octomaculata
Readville, Suffolk County, Massachusetts, USA
March 24, 2012
Size: 3 mm
Inadvertently collected with chewed-up pin oak (Quercus palustris) acorns from grassy litter at edge of floodplain marsh

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venter - Stelidota octomaculata sap beetle - Stelidota octomaculata

Common in leaves
I found a lot of these attached to fallen leaves in February. Adults in the open are rare.

 
re: common in leaves
I found three without trying
They pepped right up at room temp

life history
Adults and larvae feed on acorns. "Adults overwinter in forest litter and begin feeding on undamaged germinating or damaged acorns in March...Beetle reproduction occurs in spring or early summer inside acorns both above and below ground" -- Life History and Notes on the Biology of Stelidota octomaculata (Galford, Williams, and Daugherty, 1991)

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