Abstract
Biology of Cerambycid Beetles C. F. C. Beeson and B. M. Bhatia have published an article “On the Biology of the Cerambycidæ”. in which they present data collected during twenty-four years on the food plants, distribution, life-cycle and other biological features of 350 species of this family of beetles from India, Burma and Ceylon (Ind. Forest Rec., Ser. Entom., 5, No. 1; 1939). The total number of species of Cerambycidæ, or longicorn beetles, known to occur in the Indian region is 1182. It appears that the sal (Shorea robusta) is the tree which supports the largest number of species, some 37 different Cerambycidæ being known from it. The beetle Stromatium barbatum is recorded to have no fewer than 311 different food plants, which indicates a very unusual range of polyphagy. The food plants of at least 250 species of theso insects have not been previously published, and a total number of 568 species of Indian trees, shrubs and woody climbers is now known to be attacked by one or more kinds of Cerambycids. Hoplocerambyx spinicornis is potentially the most injurious forest insect in India. This is partially due to its liability to cause bad epidemics among the sal forests. Even a small out-break of this insect, affecting eight square miles of forest in the United Provinces, resulted in 45,000 trees being killed, representing nearly a million cubic feet of timber. the most serious epidemic was estimated to havo attacked about seven million trees before it was checked. The new data given for the biology, etc., of this species are more complete than for any other: for many of the species little more than the host tree and the locality are at present available. It is mentioned that sun-loving or diurnally active species may frequent the foliage and flowers of trees without any of them breeding as larvæ in the wood or feeding as adult beetles on the foliage or other parts of such trees.
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