Common predators and parasites associated with H. carinatus include: Pel- 
ecotoma flavipes Melsheimer (Coleoptera: Rhipiphoridae), Heterospilus flavicollis 
(Ashmead), and Histeromerus canadensis Ashmead (Hymenoptera: Braconidae). 
Ptilinus ruficornis Say is the second most common species in structures in the 
Northeast (/086), but is the most common species in northeastern hardwood forests 
(3). This species attacks only hardwoods, and this habit may possibly explain why 
it is found in forests more than in structures. Its distribution is from Newfoundland 
to Alberta and extends southward to Kansas, southeastward to Alabama, and 
northeastward to Virginia. Host woods include the same hardwood species given 
for H. carinatus except the oaks and ash (/084). P. ruficornis females bore short 
tunnels into bark-free wood for egg laying. Apparently, females have a mating or 
aggregating pheromone (3). Unlike other anobiids, the frass is very tightly packed 
in larval tunnels and does not contain discrete pellets. 
Other native and introduced species may occasionally be found damaging wood 
in use. Their occurrence in structures is of academic rather than practical signifi- 
cance because species identification is not needed for controlling infestations. 
Descriptions and distributions of these species are available (/086, 1283, 1284). 
Additional information (3) is available for the native species which include: 
Platybregmus canadensis Fisher, the Canadian powderpost beetle: Priobium 
sericeum (Say); Oligomerus obtusus LeConte; O. alternans LeConte; and Xyletinus 
harrisii Fall. 
A number of species have been introduced that are well-known wood-destroying 
pests in other parts of the world: Nicobium hirtum Uliger (//23); the furniture 
beetle, Anobium punctatum (De Geer) (132, 567, 740); Xestobium rufovillosum 
(De Geer), the deathwatch beetle (/32, 567); and Ptilinus pectinicornis (L.) 
(1085). Although these species have been reported from various locations, probably 
only the first species has a very wide distribution. 
Many anobiid beetle species can infest only dead wood in branch stubs or 
lightning scars of living trees. Various species within the genus Ernobius com- 
monly occur in bark, dead twigs, or aborted cones on coniferous trees. E. mollis 
(L.), an introduced species, has been reported from southeastern Canada southward 
to Florida and Texas. The larvae feed under the bark but may bore into the wood 
where the bark is thin or when infested wood with bark is used. Thus, adults may 
emerge from wood in structures but they cannot reinfest dry wood. Bark-beetle 
weakened trees are particularly susceptible to attack. E. granulatus LeConte, E. 
tenuicornis LeConte, and E. filicornis LeConte are other species of rather wide- 
spread but not well-known distribution. Adults of these Ernobius species are 
yellowish to reddish brown to brownish black and they have a similar range in size 
of 2.3 to 4.3 mm. More specific descriptions are available (/253, 1254). Their 
hosts are not well known. 
Many other anobiids are apparently indigenous to hardwood forests and reported 
only from hardwood hosts (3, 1/283). Many of the species are in the genus Petalium 
(437). 
Petalium bistriatum (Say) occurs from Massachusetts and New York to Ohio and 
south to the Gulf of Mexico. It breeds in the twigs of various hardwoods such as 
oak, dogwood, walnut, and buckeye (74). Adults are 1.8 to 3.0 mm long: the head, 
pronotum, and undersurfaces are reddish black to black, the elytra black, the legs 
reddish, and the antennae yellow. P. seriatum Fall has been observed breeding in the 
dead twigs of pine, oak, and bittersweet. Adults are reddish brown to nearly black 
and are 1.5 to 2.5 mm long. 
254 
