Identification, Images, & Information
For Insects, Spiders & Their Kin
For the United States & Canada

Subfamily Lyctinae - Powder-post Beetles

Lyctoxylon dentatum Lyctus cavicollis Velvety Powderpost Beetle - Trogoxylon parallelipipedum Brown Beetle - Lyctus opaculus Bostrichidae (Horned Powderpost Beetles) sp. - Lyctus Backyard #599 - Trogoxylon parallelipipedum Lyctus? - Lyctus carbonarius Lyctus? - Lyctus carbonarius
Classification
Kingdom Animalia (Animals)
Phylum Arthropoda (Arthropods)
Subphylum Hexapoda (Hexapods)
Class Insecta (Insects)
Order Coleoptera (Beetles)
Suborder Polyphaga
Superfamily Bostrichoidea
Family Bostrichidae (Horned Powder-post Beetles)
Subfamily Lyctinae (Powder-post Beetles)
Synonyms and other taxonomic changes
formerly treated as separate family [e.g., in (1)]
Explanation of Names
Lyctinae Billberg 1820
powder-post beetles refer to the propensity of the larvae to reduce sapwood into a powdery frass(1)
Numbers
2 tribes, with almost a dozen spp. in 3 genera in our area (+several regularly intercepted spp.)(2) and ~70 spp. in 12 genera worldwide(3)
Identification
Keys to New World spp. in(1)
Range
worldwide (easily spread with commerce), more diverse in the tropics(1)
Food
larva feeds mainly on the sapwood of hardwoods; species are polyphagous(1)
Remarks
"The destructiveness of lyctid beetles to wood and wood products is second only to that of termites."(1)
Works Cited
1.A revision of the New World species of powder-post beetles belonging to the family Lyctidae.
Gerberg, E.J. 1957. USDA Technical Bulletin 1157: 1–55.
2.American Beetles, Volume II: Polyphaga: Scarabaeoidea through Curculionoidea
Arnett, R.H., Jr., M. C. Thomas, P. E. Skelley and J. H. Frank. (eds.). 2002. CRC Press LLC, Boca Raton, FL.
3.World catalogue of Bostrichidae (Coleoptera)
Borowski J., Węgrzynowicz P. 2007. Mantis, Olsztyn, 247 pp.