Nearctic
The Nearctic realm is one of the eight biogeographic realms constituting the Earth's land surface.
The Nearctic realm covers most of North America, including Greenland, Central Florida, and the highlands of Mexico. The parts of North America ...
beetle
Beetles are insects that form the order Coleoptera (), in the superorder Endopterygota. Their front pair of wings are hardened into wing-cases, elytra, distinguishing them from most other insects. The Coleoptera, with about 400,000 describ ...
s in the family Elmidae.
Name ''Lara'' was also applied to a genus of
orthoptera
Orthoptera () is an order of insects that comprises the grasshoppers, locusts, and crickets, including closely related insects, such as the bush crickets or katydids and wētā. The order is subdivided into two suborders: Caelifera – grassh ...
ns by Otte and Alexander in 1983 (now ''Musgravia'' Otte, 1994), and to a genus of
harvestmen
The Opiliones (formerly Phalangida) are an order of arachnids colloquially known as harvestmen, harvesters, harvest spiders, or daddy longlegs. , over 6,650 species of harvestmen have been discovered worldwide, although the total number of extan ...
by González-Sponga in 1987 (now ''Venezuelana'' Özdikmen, 2008).
In Oregon, the life cycle of ''Lara avara'' is 4 to 6 years long, or even more. Adults can be found from May to August and live for about three weeks. They deposit the eggs on submerged wood. The larvae feed on decaying wood, absorbing substances liberated by microbial activity—they lack their own
cellulase
Cellulase (EC 3.2.1.4; systematic name 4-β-D-glucan 4-glucanohydrolase) is any of several enzymes produced chiefly by fungi, bacteria, and protozoans that catalyze cellulolysis, the decomposition of cellulose and of some related polysaccha ...