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CHECKERED BEETLES

CLERIDAE

T

he family Cleridae includes more than

3,000 species of predatory beetles. Many are

strikingly patterned, and they have earned the name

checkered beetles because some are marked in an

alternating pattern of different-colored squares,

which breaks up their outline and camouflages them

against lichen, fungus, or moss-covered bark. Many

other clerids mimic ants, or stinging flightless wasps

CLERIDAE—Checkered Beetles

family

Cleridae

known species

3,400

distribution

Worldwide, especially in the tropics

habitat

Forests, on dead wood. Some species are

found in meadows and open plains

size

2–45 mm

diet

Predators as adults and larvae, often feeding

on the adults and larvae of other beetles

notes

The carrion-associated clerid beetle

Necrobia violacea was recently identified

from fossil fragments found in California’s

famous Rancho La Brea Tar Pits, and dated

to 44,000 years old. This is interesting

called “velvet ants,” increasing this resemblance

by moving in a jerky, antlike way.

Most clerids are associated with trees, where

they feed on wood-boring beetles, and some are

beneficial to forestry because they help to control

populations of pest bark beetles (Curculionidae:

Scolytinae) or woodworms (Ptinidae: Anobiinae).

Some Cleridae have moved into other habitats;

the metallic blue species of the genus Necrobia, for

example, lives under dry carrion, feeding on other

insects and occasionally on the carrion itself.

These are sometimes called “ham beetles,”

because they may be attracted, especially

in the days before the invention of

refrigeration, to dried meats such

as hams stored for human

consumption—but they are much

more common under roadkill or

sun-dried carcasses. Another genus,

the Eurasian Trichodes, is a parasite in

the nests of solitary bees, where the

clerid larva feeds on the larva of the

bee; the brightly colored red and blue

left | Allochotes sauteri Like many Taiwanese

species, this beetle is named after entomologist

Hans Sauter (1871–1943), who intensively

studied the island’s natural history.