Numbers
~90 spp. in our area
(1), perhaps more in Eurasia
NB: acc'g to Jens Prena, "Baris apparently does not occur in North America; it's a different genus here called Cyphirhinus. The species are so darn similar that conventional morphology has reached a limit here. I worked on them a little in the DC area and found that the local species display considerable host fidelity. Gilbert worked on the Californian species but the host association did not get him anywhere." (pers. comm. to =v= 1.iii.2012)
Food
various plants, mostly Asteraceae
(1)Remarks
The genus Baris Germar is female. Schoenherr, who was the first to look systematically into weevils, anticipated that future scientist will be lingually illiterate and unable to adjust a Latin epithet to another gender (he was right in that). He proposed that all weevil genera should be masculine by default and therefore emended already existing female generic names. He proposed Baridius as a replacement name for Baris. Obviously, the code is against him but up to the 1990s Baridius was still floating around in the literature. In contrast, Barinus was intentionally proposed for a different genus. --Jens Prena, pers. comm. to =v= 1.iii.2012 (just a cool piece of trivia, also showing what a visionary Schoenherr was... feel free to delete)
