Ergates faber

Ergates faber is a species of Coleoptera polyphagous insects belonging to the family Cerambycidae.
The beetles fly around noon. Their flight time is from mid-July to mid-September. The females lay up to 275 eggs in smaller piles of eight to ten (but up to 60) pieces of dead wood from needle. Here snags are preferred on sunny stock edges or in clearings.

The larvae hatch in 2 to 3 weeks to get to bore into the wood. Their development lasts 3 to 4 years. During this time they reach a length of 60-65 (sometimes up over 80) mm. They have strong mandibles and the abdomen segments 1-7 clearly trained Laufwülste with which they can move for longhorn beetle larvae unusually fast. Legs are in place, but these are relatively small. For a good development, the larvae require a certain moisture content, therefore, both under and above ground ground-level master parts are preferred. At the core woods pine and larch usually only the sapwood is destroyed in spruce and fir, however, the whole timber body. Here, the timber (the German name therefore) will Mulm transformed. This consists of wood shavings and droppings. The surface of the timber body is left intact. The larvae pupate generally in the wood near the surface, even if there are individual finds of dolls in caves near the infested wood. For hatching the beetles gnaws then an oval entrance hole with frayed edges in the surface of the timber body.

As part of the precipitation line in the timber Mulmbock is an important part of Ökokreislaufes. As well as other xylophagous insects it infects occasionally woodwork. In particular, fence posts and poles pine like to populate the earth-air area. were mentioned repeatedly Formerly in the literature damage to telephone poles which were then still protected by a carbolineum paint. Could the attack did not prevent but on the contrary even exerted an attractive effect on the beetles.