Pictures from a Friday trip to the Buda Hills, that I visited with Tamás Németh and Sándor Ilniczky. Our principal aim was to get new data about the violet click beetle (Limoniscus violaceus [Ph. Müller, 1843]), the larvae of which lives in tree hollows, and overwinters as adults. The strong northerly wind made our work quite difficult. Our track started from the Normafa, went along the Budakeszi Forest and led to the town centre of Budakeszi. The trail crossed beech, lime-ash and oak forests.
Our first stop was at a dried-out beech (Fagus sylvatica L.), on a big clearing.
Standing under it, we collected from the fallen branches.
Body of a jewel beetle (Dicerca berolinensis [Herbst, 1779]) that died last year. For an unknown reason, it was unable to leave its pupal chamber.
Last instar larvae of this species live in the dry, hard part of the wood.
Dozens of a small, green longicorn beetle (Callimus angulatus [Schrank, 1789]) await for the spring.
Plump larvae of a deathwatch beetle Hedobia pubescens (Olivier, 1790) also feed on hard wood.
In this hollow of a cut out oak tree we found three larvae of the violet click beetle (Limoniscus violaceus [Ph. Müller, 1843]). As usual, these were accompanied with another click beetle, Ischnodes sanguinicollis (Panzer, 1793).
The last nice hollow of the day, with two other wintering species of Elateridae:
Cardiophorus gramineus (Scopoli, 1763)
and Ampedus nigerrimus (Lacordaire, 1835).
Translated by O. Merkl & T. Németh
