Pityogenes chalcographus (Linnaeus, 1761)

Distribution in Iran. Guilan, Mazandaran (Omid et al. 2011).

General distribution. Europe, Turkey, through Russia to China, Korea, Japan.

Biology. It usually attacks species of Picea, less often Pinus, occasionally Abies and Larix (Pinaceae). It attacks both species native to Europe, and species imported from North America (Bertheau et al. 2012). No hosts have been recorded in Iran. The biology and ecology are described by Chararas (1962), Harding et al. (1986) and Hedgren et al. (2003) and others. Primary attraction to the host tree has been shown (Tunset et al. 1993), but as with P. bidentatus, there is a male-produced aggregation pheromone which attracts both sexes (Byers et al. 1988). It normally attacks stressed or weakened trees, but can occasionally cause high tree mortality of young spruce trees (Hedgren et al. 2003). The tree-killing ability of the species when attacking alone is low (Hedgren 2004), but it is usually associated with Ips typographus (L.), a species which is associated with aggressive wood-living fungi, and is primarily responsible for tree mortality (Hedgren 2004).