#beetle gallery

[onenicebugperday]

@karltface submitted: Well, it's bug adjacent.

I recently picked up this thoroughly crude and unstable cane at a secondhand store, because it was the only one among a dozen that wasn't just plain smooth wood.

It's lined with beetle baby tracks! Five of the branching sort...

And a couple thicker, meandering ones. At least two species left their mark!

Bonus: bit of lichen on the handle.

Neat find! They're called galleries and the shape can often determine which species made them. I am definitely not knowledgable enough in that area to ID them myself, though.

[briery]

Beetle Gallery This gallery has been carved into the tree’s phloem, or inner bark, by a bark beetle. Some species of beetles carve a specific pattern, while others carve random grooves. The galleries are often beautiful but beetle attacks are deadly.

[briery]

Beetle Gallery The gallery is carved into the tree’s phloem, or inner bark, by female beetles and their larvae. Some species of beetles carve a specific pattern, while others carve random grooves. The galleries are often beautiful but beetle attacks are deadly.

[shadowsdream]

Just saw a post about beetle galleries and now screaming and crying because I lost the post before I could comment or reblog. BUT! I went and looked up more pictures and found that they often have this sort of fishbone looking pattern, which is the most efficient way for a lot of individuals to consume resources over a 2d space. So I looked up if bark beetles only eat/ live at a certain depth of a tree trunk and. The larvae only feed on the cambium layer immediately under the bark. Which means that they instinctively eat in the most spatially efficient way. I fucking love biology

[04032021]

beetle gallery

[palustrine]

may try and code a beetle tracker and then it shows a map that mimics a beetle gallery- bug girl things <3