ROMSO Cyprus Knowledge Base

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Temnochila caerulea is a beetle from the hunting beetle family, which belongs to the superfamily of cunt beetle species.
The genus Temnochila is represented in Europe with only two species, in Central and South America with about a hundred species.

The generic name Temnochila is derived from the ancient Greek τέμνω, témno, “I cut” and χεῖλος, chēīlos, “lip” and refers to the longitudinal furrow from the forehead to the upper lip, the species name caerulea from the Latin caeruleus, “blue” denotes the body color.

Characteristics of the bug
The flat beetle (Figure 1, middle) is about three and a half times as long as wide and reaches a length of eleven to eighteen millimeters. The whole body, including legs and feelers, shines metallic blue, rarely green.

The head (Figure 5) is almost as wide as the neck shield. It is approximately square and evenly rounded laterally. The mouth tools point forward. The upper lip is cut straight at the front, but appears indented by the longitudinal impression. The upper jaws end two-pointed. They carry a blunt tooth on the inside (FIG. 5). The grinding surface at the base of the upper jaws is missing. Jaw and lip buttons widen towards the tip (Figure 3, pink and blue). The forehead is furrowed forward to the upper lip. The eleven-member sensors are pivoted laterally behind the base of the upper jaws. They thicken outwards, the last three limbs form an only indistinctly set, loose club. The sensor members are clunky, the sensors do not reach the center of the neck shield. They may be partly inserted into a clearly shaped probe channel which extends below the eyes towards the underside of the head (green in FIGS. 3 and 4). The round eyes are strikingly flat (FIG. 5).

The neck shield, like the head, is strongly punctured, coarse on the side, finer along the middle. Its front edge is slightly inwardly curved on both sides of the center and the front corners are only slightly forward. It's about the same length as the width. The side edge is bent angularly behind the center (FIG. 4, arrowhead), behind it the neck shield narrows up to the obtuse rear corners.

The wing covers are about as wide as the head and neck shield and narrow slightly towards the rear. In the end, they are rounded together. They are stripped through rows of narrow elongated points (Fig. 7, the two lowest rows green). The gaps are frowned transversely and have a longitudinal row of coarse points (FIG. 7, yellow at the lowest interval). The sides are narrowly bordered (Figure 1, middle). The sign is very small.

The hind hips almost touch each other, but the front and middle hips are separated from each other (FIG. 1, below). The tarsen are five-membered with a small first member and a long claw member (FIG. 2). The claw member carries a skinned appendage (onychium, FIG. 6) between the claws.

Larvae
The larva (Fig. 8) is elongated, only the head and