Overview
Adult scraptiids are usually collected on flowers and foliage, and the larvae have been found under bark and in rotten wood and leaf litter.
Description
Oblong to narrowly elongate, parallel-sided to fusiform, soft-bodied and uniformly pubescent beetles with relatively long legs and antennae. Head strongly deflexed and abruptly constricted behind eyes forming a narrow neck; frontoclypeal suture distinct; eyes coarsely facetted and deeply emarginate; apical segment of maxillary palp securiform; lateral pronotal carinae complete or incomplete anteriorly; tibial spurs well developed and pubescent; penultimate tarsal segment lobed beneath.
Larvae elongate, parallel-sided, somewhat flattened and lightly sclerotised, with oblong, setose, deciduous process (often broken off) at apex of T9. Head without median endocarina; antennal sensorium dome-like; ligula moderately long.
Distribution
Australian species all belong to Scraptiinae.
Xylophilostenus octophyllus
is unusual in having the last 8 antennal segments bearing long, flabellate processes. All other described species have been placed in the world-wide genus
Scraptia
, but several undescribed genera have been seen in collections. [Franciscolo 1972; Lawrence 1987b; Watt 1987.]