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Sticker of Velvety bark beetle
Bug card No. 4568 of 4,939

Velvety bark beetle

Penthe pimelia
Eats: Fungus and mouldBeetlesForests and woods6 legs

The velvety bark beetle is a dark beetle from North America. It is dark all over, from head to tail. It belongs to a group of beetles that live with fungi on trees.

Lives in
North America, in woods
Top speed
about 0.5 km/h (0.31 mph)
On foot, estimate
Can it hurt you?
Harmless
Harmless. It does not bite or sting people.
What does it eat?
It belongs to the polypore fungus beetles, which feed on the hard bracket fungi that grow on trees.
For real!Photo of Velvety bark beetle
Picture by xpda. CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons.

How fast is it?

cool stuff

Fun facts

1

Even the little triangle between its wing covers is dark.

2

Its only cousin of the same kind in North America has a bright orange triangle there. That is how you tell them apart.

3

Its group is named after polypores, the shelf-like fungi that grow on tree trunks.

you asked

Most asked questions about Velvety bark beetle

?Is the velvety bark beetle dangerous?

No. It is harmless to people.

?How can you tell the velvety bark beetle from its cousin?

Look at the little triangle between the wing covers. On this beetle it is dark, on its cousin it is bright orange.

For bug experts

Scientific name
Penthe pimelia
Group
Beetles
Family
Tetratomidae
Classification
Insecta > Coleoptera > Tetratomidae
Lives on
North America

Where the facts come from

  1. Penthe pimelia (Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0): what it looks like, where it lives, what it eats, sizes and fun facts, retold in simple words.
  2. Picture by xpda. CC BY-SA 4.0, Wikimedia Commons. The sticker of this bug is drawn from this picture.

If we got something wrong, sorry, we are bug fans, not a science journal. Tell us at [email protected] and we will fix it.

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More from the same group: Beetles

Also at home here: Forests and woods

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