Rhagium mordax (De Geer, 1775)

This species is generally distributed and for most part very common throughout Europe except for the far north of Fennoscandia, to the south it is present along the entire northern Mediterranean and Black sea borders and to the east extends through Asia Minor and Russia to Mongolia and eastern Siberia. In the UK it is common throughout England and Wales although rather less so in East Anglia, and more local and scattered to the far north of Scotland, it is present on the Isle of Wight and Anglesey though absent from Man and most of the Scottish Islands. Typical habitats are woodland and wooded parkland, adults occur from April or May and are usually present into July or August, they frequently visit open-structured flowers such as Hawthorn, Elder and various umbellifers on wooded margins or hedgerows and may also be found basking on trunks and walls etc. Mating occurs early in the year and pairs may sometimes be seen on flowers, the species is widely polyphagous and females will oviposit on a range of dying and decaying deciduous and broadleaf trees e.g. oak, chestnut, alder, birch, beech, ash, lime, hornbeam, pine and spruce among many others, standing as well as fallen timer and old stumps are chosen and eggs are laid among crevices and cracks in the bark, usually in areas where the wood has started to decay and become soft. Larvae develop through the summer forming shallow galleries under the bark and rarely entering the xylem, development usually takes two years though in unfavourable condition can be extended to three years, they are said to be very active and will attempt to bite if handled. Pupation occurs beneath the bark in August or September and for this the larva prepares an intricate oval cell of wood fibres around a depression in the xylem, this stage is brief and adults eclose in the autumn, they soon become hardened and pigmented but they remain in the cell to overwinter and emerge the following spring. The hymenopteran, Ischnoceros sapporensis Gravenhorst, 1829 (Ichneumonidae, Xoridinae) is a small wasp that parasitizes a range of longhorn beetle larvae including those of the present species.