Overview

Adults may fly to lights at night and have been observed flying around a log dump and coming to the hot ashes of a campfire. [Champion 1922.]

Description

Elongate, flattened, black beetles clothed with stiff, erect hairs and similar to dasytine Melyridae, from which they differ in having a distinct antennal club and pair of unusual, partly covered, hypomeral cavities in front of fore coxae. A putative 1st instar larva described by Crowson (1970) has the characteristics of a trogossitid, but the association is doubtful.

Distribution

Acanthocnemus nigricans is widely distributed in Australia and has been introduced into New Caledonia and various parts of Europe, Asia and Africa.