Morphological variation

Placusa pinearum, a newly described beetle species found living in pine shoot tunnels bored by the pine tip moth, Dioryctria rubella (Pyralidae), has potential as a vector to transport biological agents for controlling this moth pest of pine trees because of the high degree of niche overlap (co-occurrence) between them. In order to help determine the suitability of potential biological control vectors, it is useful to obtain knowledge concerning the intraspecific variation of the vector. We examined P.