Tenebrionidae Latreille, 1802

Berx, Peter, Bosmans, Bart, Dekoninck, Wouter, Janssen, Marc, Stassen, Eugène & Crevecoeur, Luc, 2023, Faunistic survey of myrmecophilous and other ant-associated beetles and spiders in the Belgian province of Limburg (Araneae, Coleoptera, Hymenoptera: Formicidae), Belgian Journal of Entomology 141, pp. 1-61 : 45

Tenebrionidae Latreille, 1802

The darkling beetles we collected in the vicinity of ants, vary widely in size. Myrmechixenus subterraneus (1.3-1.6 mm) is the smallest compared to the largest Prionychus ater (12.0- 14.0 mm). Myrmechixenus subterraneus appears not to be strictly tied to a single guest ant but has been associated with several species of the genera Formica and Lasius . One might then expect it to be the most common beetle because it has few demands on the microbiotope, but with only three 1 x 1 km grids the opposite is true (Annex). From Pseudocistela ceramboides (10.0-12.0mm) it is claimed that this darkling beetle prefers oak forests ( FREUDE, 1969), but in addition to pedunculate oak, we have found this species on a wide variety of trees: alder, apple, ash, beech, cherry, elder, hornbeam, linden, pear, Scots pine and poplar. Diaperis boleti (6.0- 8.0 mm) and Eledona agricola (2.2-2.5 mm) are both often observed sieving old mushrooms.