Trogoderma variabile Ballion, 1878

Cvetkovska-Gjorgievska, Aleksandra, Dedov, Ivailo, Hristovski, Slavcho, Langourov, Mario, Lazarevska, Stanislava, Prelik, Dana & Simov, Nikolay, 2019, New records of allochtonous, invasive and pest invertebrate species from the Republic of Macedonia, Ecologica Montenegrina 20, pp. 56-70 : 60-61

Trogoderma variabile Ballion, 1878 - Warehouse beetle ( Coleoptera , Dermestidae )

Record: Herbal tea bags, Skopje, numerous larval specimens, November 2016.

Origin: T. variabile is cosmopolitan species ( Háva 2015). This species is registered in all zoogeographical regions, including: South Africa, Central and North America, Middle East, Asia and Australia ( Háva 2003; Stejskal et al. 2005), distributed mainly in the Holarctic Region (cf. Hagstrum & Subramanyam 2009; Háva 2015)

According to Nardi & Vomero (2017), in Europe, it was firstly recorded from Caucasus ( Mroczkowski 1968) and since 1975 in other regions (cf. Šefrová & Laštůvka 2005; Denux & Zagatti 2010), and according EASIN (2018) the first introduction in Europe was in 1978 in UK ( Denux & Zagatti 2010) primarily by trading (EASIN 2018). DAISIE database lists only the distribution in Czech Republic, Finland, Great Britain, Italy, Latvia and Sweden (DAISIE 2018). In recent literature ( Nardi & Vomero 2017) the species presence is registered in other parts of Europe: Armenia, Belarus, Finland, Greece, Lithuania, South European Russia, Sweden, The Netherlands ( Barševskis 2001; Hagstrum et al. 2013; Zhantiev 2013; Háva 2015) as well as Asia: Kyrgyzstan ( Ovchinnikov 1996) and Syria ( Pic 1908; Háva 2007).

Comments: T. variabile is a polyphagous pest. The adults do not feed, but the diet of larval stages is based on a dried high-protein material like legumes, cereals, milk powder and material from herbarium and zoological collections ( Peacock 1993; Beal 2003; Hagstrum et al. 2013).