Prionoceridae

Prionoceridae
Idgia belli from India
Scientific classification
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Arthropoda
Class: Insecta
Order: Coleoptera
Suborder: Polyphaga
Superfamily: Cleroidea
Family: Prionoceridae
Lacordaire, 1857

Prionoceridae is a small family of beetles, in the suborder Polyphaga. The form a group within the cleroid beetles and were formerly treated as a subfamily Prionocerinae within the family Melyridae. Very little is known of their life history but most species are pollen feeders as adults and occur in large numbers during spring or the host flowering season. Larvae are predatory or feed on decomposing wood.

Description

Beetles in the family are elongate with soft elytra. The elytra are often covered with rows of hairs. The margin of the eyes are not round but notched anteriorly. The head faces forward (prognathous) and the clypeal region is produced into a short flat snout. Each of the legs have five tarsi (5-5-4 in the Oedemeridae) with simple claws and a single spur on the pro-tibia. Male Idgia and Prionocerus have a comb on the inner edge of the distal tarsal segment of the foreleg.[1] The genera Nacerdes and Xanthochroa in the family Oedemeridae and some Cantharidae bear resemblance to some of the Prionoceridae.[2]

Members of the family were formerly included as a subfamily within the closely related Melyridae (the genus Lobonyx in Dasytidae). Prionoceridae have been recorded from the middle Jurassic of China (Idgiaites jurassicus) and Eocene Amber from Canada (Prionocerites tattriei).[3][4][5]

Diversity

There are around 150 species in three genera Lobonyx (Mostly Palaearctic), Prionocerus (Palaeotropical) and Idgia (Palaeotropical).

The following is a partial list of the species that have been described (the generic placement and validity are unverified and likely to be out of date) :

References

  1. ↑ Champion, G.C. (1919). "The Malacoderm genera Prionocerus and Idgia and their sexual characters". Annals and Magazine of Natural History. 9 (3): 325–372.
  2. ↑ Aston, Paul (2011). "Prionoceridae Lacordaire 1857 of Hong Kong and Guangdong Province, China (Coleoptera; Cleroidea)". Hong Kong Entomological Bulletin. 3 (1): 2–6.
  3. ↑ Lawrence, J.F.; Archibald, S.B.; Ślipiński, A. (2008). "A New Species of Prionoceridae (Coleoptera: Cleroidea) from the Eocene of British Columbia, Canada". Annales Zoologici. 58 (4): 689–693. doi:10.3161/000345408X396620.
  4. ↑ Liu, Zhenhua; Ślipiński, Adam; Leschen, Richard A. B.; Ren, Dong; Pang, Hong (2015). "The Oldest Prionoceridae (Coleoptera: Cleroidea) from the Middle Jurassic of China". Annales Zoologici. 65 (1): 41–52. doi:10.3161/00034541ANZ2015.65.1.004.
  5. 1 2 Yuxia, Yang; Geiser, Michael; Xingk, Yang (2012). "A little-known beetle family in China, Prionoceridae Lacordaire, 1857 (Coleoptera: Cleroidea)" (PDF). Entomotaxonomia. 34 (2): 378–390.
  6. ↑ Constantin R. (2009). "A revision of the genus Lobonyx Jacquelin du Val, 1859, of Central Asia, with the description of a new species from Nepal (Insecta: Coleoptera, Prionoceridae)". In Hartmann M, Weipert J. Biodiversität und Naturausstattung im Himalaya, Band 3. Erfurt: Verein der Freunde & Förderer des Naturkundemuseums Erfurt e.V. pp. 299–311.
  7. ↑ Geiser, Michael (2010). "Studies on Prionoceridae (Coleoptera: Cleroidea). II. A revision of the genus Prionocerus Perty, 1831" (PDF). Zootaxa. 2328: 1–48.
  8. ↑ Geiser, M. (2007). "Studies on Prionoceridae (Coleoptera, Cleroidea). I. A new species of Prionocerus Perty, 1831 from Sumatra." (PDF). Entomologica Basiliensia et Collectionis Frey. 29: 167–170.
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