Tribolium confusum Du Val, 1863

Tribolium confusum

Confused flour beetle, Tribolium confusum Du Val, 1863 (Coleoptera: Tenebrionidae) has a cosmopolitan distribution (Park, 1934). The origins of this common name for T. confusum is due to it being physically, and biologically, similar to the rust-red flour beetle, Tribolium castaneum (Herbst, 1797) (Coleoptera: Tenebrionidae) (Trematerra et al., 2007). It has a complete life cycle (holometabolous: egg, larva, pupa, and adult). This species, T. confusum, like the rust-red flour beetle, is a small beetle labeled a pest of stored products and often associated with food-processing facilities (Boina and Subramanyam, 2004). Development time from egg to adult is approximately 40 days (Tunçbilek and Kansu, 1996), but is dependent on a variety of factors such as temperature (Park and Frank, 1948) and diet (Tunçbilek and Kansu, 1996).

References

  • Boina, D. and Subramanyam, B., 2004. Relative susceptibility of Tribolium confusum life stages exposed to elevated temperatures. Journal of Economic Entomology 97: 2168–2173.
  • Park, T., 1934. Observations on the general biology of the flour beetle, Tribolium confusum. The Quarterly Review of Biology 9: 36–54.
  • Park, T. and Frank, M.B., 1948. The fecundity and development of the flour beetles, Tribolium confusum and Tribolium castaneum, at three constant temperatures. Ecology 29: 368–374.
  • Trematerra, P., Gentile, P., Brunetti, A., Collins, L.E. and Chambers, J., 2007. Spatio-temporal analysis of trap catches of Tribolium confusum du Val in a semolina-mill, with a comparison of female and male distributions. Journal of Stored Products Research 43: 315–322.
  • Tunçbilek, A.S. and Kansu, I.A., 1996. The influence of rearing medium on the irradiation sensitivity of eggs and larvae of the flour beetle, Tribolium confusum J. du Val. Journal of Stored Products Research 32: 1–6.
 
 

Classification

Tribolium confusum
Kingdom Animalia
Phylum Arthropoda
Class Insecta
Order Coleoptera
Family Tenebrionidae
Genus Tribolium
Species T. confusum
   
Author citation Du Val, 1863
Common name confused flour beetle