Feeding Habits and Behavior of a Bee Killer: Hololepta reichii (Coleoptera, Histeridae).

Hololepta (Leionota) reichii Marseul is a widespread but rarely encountered natural enemy of social bees, so we evaluated feeding habits and behavior of such a clown beetle regarding bees, beehive by-products, and other sources of food under a monitored environment. The experiments revealed that H. reichii preferentially predates larvae and pupae of social bees extracted from brood cells, but also feeds on dead adult stingless bees and on larvae and pupae inside cells. This note reports the first finding of clown beetles (Coleoptera, Histeridae) in a hive aggregation of stingless and honey bees in natural conditions and expands the known distribution of the species to the state of Espírito Santo, the second record in the Brazilian Atlantic Forest.

Operclipygus hospes (Lewis) (Coleoptera, Histeridae): a beetle of potential forensic importance for buried bodies.

Operclipygus hospes (Lewis) is reported as a new record of Histeridae associated with buried bodies in the Neotropical region. It is also suggested that O. hospes has an important role in forensic entomology as a seasonal indicator. To assist in the recognition and the use of this species in forensic entomology, diagnosis and illustrations of the main characters of the genus and species are provided.