File:Lyctus Brunneus - John Obadiah Westwood - 637 1911.jpg

Thomas Vernon Wollaston published this drawing in his book ‘Insecta Maderensia’ in 1854. In the book he thanks Westwood for providing the illustrations, ‘Particularly, however, would I draw attention to the valuable help which I have received from J. O. Westwood, Esq., whose pencil has been so elaborately employed in the figures which I am thus enabled to attach, and by whom many of the minutest of the dissections were accomplished, — with a degree of delicacy, moreover, to which I did not myself at the commencement of this Work (though I have since succeeded in anatomizing the larger portion of them, likewise) lay claim.’

Wollaston wrote the following about this species:

‘The present Lyctus has in all probability been naturalized in these islands, it being an insect which, from its habits, is liable to constant transmission throughout the world: nevertheless, since it would appear to establish itself with greater facility in subaustral than in northern regions, it may perhaps be truly indigenous on the southern Mediterranean limits,—in which case it is just possible that Madeira may come within its legitimate range. It is my belief, however, that it has been imported from other countries,—an hypothesis which is somewhat strengthened by the fact that it is never found, so far at least as I am aware, except either in or near the villages and towns, whilst most of the specimens which have hitherto turned up were captured in the houses themselves. The first example which came beneath my notice was detected by the Rev. R. T. Lowe, during July 1850, in a Quinta at Seisal : and it was not untll June of the following year that it again occurred,—when a second was communicated by M. Dohrn of Stettin, which had crawled out of a dried skin which had been prepared in Madeira by M. Hartung. About the same time, moreover, I received it from Mr. Leacock,—taken in Funchal; and within the last month M. Dohrn has informed me that it has been reared in abundance at Konigsberg, from larvae which have been lately brought away from the island. In its habits, it would seem, to a certain extent, to combine the dermaphagous tendency of Trogosita with the lignivorous propensities of the true Lycti, since it is, apparently, able to adapt itself to even dried animal food. Still, like the common European L. canaliculatus, it is normally attached to wood,—from out of which indeed M. Dohrn states that the Konigsberg specimens were produced.’