Behaviour
The adults grab their prey with all their legs quickly so the prey can't run away. Then the beetle bites between the thorax and abdomen, or head and thorax to leverage out the soft succulent parts of a bark beetle. The whole feeding process takes only about 10 minutes. The clerids can feed about 3 bark beetles per day for several days. It is interesting that once a clerid begins to feed it almost always finishes the process so it never waste prey. Different experiments suggest that ant beetles prefer Pinus trees than the Abies or Picea for oviposition. Some experiments suggested that bark thickness could be a critical factor limiting pupation of T. formicarius on spruce. Possible mimicry: The shape of the body and coloration of ant beetles resamle those of velvet ants from the genera Mutilla that can be seen on the same places with ant beetles. Velvet ants ants are famous from their painful stinging.
Read more about this topic: Thanasimus Formicarius
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