Taxon classification Animalia Coleoptera Staphylinidae

Mocyta sphagnorum Klimaszewski & Webster

(for details and illustrations, see Klimaszewski et al. 2015b)

Distribution.

Natural history.

In SK, specimens were captured from May through September from willow-aspen litter, hawthorn litter near creek, wet grass and weed clippings, moist spruce litter near stream, spruce litter, spruce-aspen litter, and in decaying mushrooms. In NB, adults were found in sphagnum moss and litter in calcareous eastern white cedar fens and in a black spruce forest (Klimaszewski et al. 2015b). One individual was collected from mouldy conifer duff at the base of a large pine in a mixed forest (Klimaszewski et al. 2015b). Adults were found in April and May in New Brunswick, and June to August elsewhere. This species often seems to be associated with moist sphagnum moss (Klimaszewski et al. 2015b).

Comments.

Males of this species can be mixed up with those of Mocyta breviuscula and positive identification may only be possible with female association as Mocyta are definitively identified by the shape of the spermatheca.