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Family Mordellidae - Tumbling Flower Beetles

Tumbling Flower Beetle - Hoshihananomia octopunctata Mordellidae Mordellistena cervicalis ? - Mordellistena cervicalis Beetle - Mordella melaena Mordella sp.? - Mordella marginata tumbling flower beetle – Mordella atrata? - Mordella Mordellidae - Mordella marginata Mordellistena husseyi
Classification
Kingdom Animalia (Animals)
Phylum Arthropoda (Arthropods)
Subphylum Hexapoda (Hexapods)
Class Insecta (Insects)
Order Coleoptera (Beetles)
Suborder Polyphaga
No Taxon (Series Cucujiformia)
Superfamily Tenebrionoidea
Family Mordellidae (Tumbling Flower Beetles)
Other Common Names
Pintail Beetles
Synonyms and other taxonomic changes
The taxonomy of the family is in flux; a number of species have been moved to different genera or tribes(1)(2)
Explanation of Names
Mordellidae Latreille 1802
Numbers
just over 200 spp. in 17 genera north of Mexico; ~1500 spp. in 100 genera worldwide(3)(4)(5)(6); 56 spp. in Canada(7), 68 in WI(8), 43 in NH(9), 38 in FL(10), 26 in CA(11)
All NA species are members of the subfam. Mordellinae (the sole member of another subfamily lives in S. Africa)(3)
Overview of our fauna
Family Mordellidae
Size
1.5‒15 mm (usually 3‒8 mm)
Identification
Body humpbacked, more or less wedge-shaped; broadest at front; head is bent forward, attached ventrally; abdomen pointy, extending beyond elytra. Hind legs enlarged. They kick and tumble about when disturbed. Black or gray, some brown; hairy, sometimes light patches of hair form pattern. Antennae short to moderate, threadlike, sawtoothed or clubbed. Tarsal claws often bilobed or comblike.
Identification beyond family often involves the number of ridges on the hind tibia and tarsi (see photo below); try to photograph these parts

The most comprehensive treatment of our fauna is (12), but the taxonomy there is obsolete
Habitat
Common on flowers and foliage; sometimes on dead trees and logs. Larvae occur in dead or dying hardwoods, in pith of weeds or in bracket fungi.
Food
Larvae are believed to eat plant material in decaying wood, etc. Some are leaf/stem miners; some are predaceous. Adults of many spp. visit flowers.(8)
Remarks
Additional characters:
maxillary palpi 4-jointed, apical joint variable
head vertical and held closely to prosternum in repose, suddenly constricted immediately behind the eyes
antennae slender, 11-jointed, inserted at the sides of the front
thorax strongly narrowed in front, its lateral suture distinct
elytra narrowed behind, not truncate, leaving exposed the tip of the abdomen, the latter with five or six ventral segments
front legs short, hind ones usually long; front coxae large, conical, contiguous, without trochantins, the cavities open behind
hind coxae flat, contiguous, very large in most of our species
hind tarsi long, compressed
tarsal claws either simple or cleft to the base, with the upper portion comb-toothed in most species
Print References
Ford E.J., Jackman J.A. (1996) New larval host plant associations of tumbling flower beetles (Coleoptera: Mordellidae) in North America. Col. Bull. 50: 361‒368.
Works Cited
1.Nomenclatural changes for selected Mordellidae (Coleoptera) in North America
J.A. Jackman & W. Lu. 2001. Insecta Mundi 15(1): 31-34.
2.Taxonomic changes for fifteen species of North American Mordellidae (Coleoptera)
Lisberg A.E. 2003. Insecta Mundi 17: 191-194.
3.American Beetles, Volume II: Polyphaga: Scarabaeoidea through Curculionoidea
Arnett, R.H., Jr., M. C. Thomas, P. E. Skelley and J. H. Frank. (eds.). 2002. CRC Press LLC, Boca Raton, FL.
4.Descriptions of Four New Species of Tumbling Flower Beetles (Coleoptera: Mordellidae) from Eastern North America
Steury, B.W. and W.E. Steiner. 2020. The Coleopterists Bulletin, Vol. 74, No. 4, pp. 699-709.
5.A catalog of Coleoptera of America north of Mexico. Family: Mordellidae
Bright D.E. 1986. USDA Agric. handbook no. 529-125. viii+22 pp.
6.Order Coleoptera Linnaeus, 1758. In: Zhang Z.-Q. (ed.) Animal biodiversity: An outline of higher-level classification...
Ślipiński S.A., Leschen R.A.B., Lawrence J.F. 2011. Zootaxa 3148: 203–208.
7.Bousquet Y., ed. (1991) Checklist of the beetles of Canada and Alaska
8.An annotated checklist of Wisconsin Mordellidae (Coleoptera)
Lisberg, A. E. & D. Young. 2003. Insecta Mundi, Vol. 17, No. 3-4: 195 - 203.
9.University of New Hampshire Insect and Arachnid Collections
10.A Distributional Checklist of the Beetles (Coleoptera) of Florida
11.California Beetle Project
12.Monograph of the Family Mordellidae (Coleoptera) of North America, North of Mexico
Emil Liljeblad. 1945. University of Michigan Press.