''Poecilips fallax'' is small

beetle Beetles are insects that form the order Coleoptera (), in the superorder Endopterygota. Their front pair of wings are hardened into wing-cases, elytra, distinguishing them from most other insects. The Coleoptera, with about 400,000 describ ...

of the subfamily

Scolytinae A bark beetle is the common name for the subfamily of beetles Scolytinae. Previously, this was considered a distinct family (Scolytidae), but is now understood to be a specialized clade of the "true weevil" family ( Curculionidae). Although th ...

. The beetle, related to carver beetles, is a pest to mangrove trees especially ''

Rhizophora mucronata ''Rhizophora mucronata'' (loop-root mangrove, red mangrove or Asiatic mangrove) is a species of mangrove found on coasts and river banks in East Africa and the Indo-Pacific region. Description ''Rhizophora mucronata'' is a small to medium si ...

'' and ''

Rhizophora apiculata Rhizophora apiculata (''R. apiculata'') belongs to the Plantae kingdom under the Rhizophoraceae family. Currently ''R. apiculata'' is distributed throughout Australia (Queensland and Northern Territory), Guam, India, Indonesia, Malaysia, Microne ...

''. The adults oviposit or insert their eggs into the hypocotyls before the seed matures or drops to the mud below. When the eggs hatch, the larvae bore tunnels leading away from oviposition site. These tunnels get longer and larger as the larve gets farther. The larvae and adults feed on the content of the hypocotyl, distorting its shape, incapacitating it to germinate and eventually rot. When the larvae complete their growth, they pupate at the end of the tunnels and emerge through a round hole from the

hypocotyl The hypocotyl (short for "hypocotyledonous stem", meaning "below seed leaf") is the stem of a germinating seedling, found below the cotyledons (seed leaves) and above the radicle (root). Eudicots As the plant embryo grows at germination, it sen ...

References

Scolytinae Beetles described in 1927 {{Scolytinae-stub