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Home » Guide » Arthropods (Arthropoda) » Hexapods (Hexapoda) » Insects (Insecta) » Beetles (Coleoptera) » Polyphaga » Series Cucujiformia » Tenebrionoidea » Blister Beetles (Meloidae) » Nemognathinae » Nemognathini » Nemognatha

Genus Nemognatha

Classification · Explanation of Names · Numbers · Size · Identification · Range · Season · Food · Life Cycle · Remarks · Works Cited

Nemognatha nitidula? - Nemognatha nitidula

Orange and Black Beetle - Nemognatha punctulata

Meliodae beetle maybe orange w black spots - Nemognatha cribraria

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 Meloidae (Blister Beetles)

Subfamily Nemognathinae

Tribe Nemognathini

Genus Nemognatha

Explanation of Names

Nemognatha Illiger 1807

'thread-like jaw'

Numbers

28 spp. in 4 subgenera in our area(1), ~50 in New World, ~80 worldwide(2); selected local faunas: 4 spp. in Canada(3), 4 in NC(4), 3 in FL(5), 14 in CA(6), 1 in NH(7), 7 in OK(8), 10 in AZ

Size

5.5-15 mm

Identification

separation from Zonitis remains problematic; species are very difficult to identify, our spp. are separated by aedeagus structure(2); key to spp. in(9)

Range

Worldwide (except Australasia); throughout the New World except for the cold high latitudes(2); in our area, more diverse in the west

Season

spring, summer

Food

larval hosts: solitary bees of several families(2); adults: nectar and pollen, especially of Asteraceae(10)

Life Cycle

Females lay eggs on flowers, larvae attach to visiting bees and are carried to bee nests(11)

Remarks

mouthparts (maxillae) very long (used to suck nectar)(12)

Works Cited

1.	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.

2.	The New World genera of Meloidae (Coleoptera): a key and synopsis Pinto J.D., Bologna M.A. 1999. J. Nat. Hist. 33: 569‒620.

3.	Bousquet Y., ed. (1991) Checklist of the beetles of Canada and Alaska

4.	NCSU insect collection species inventory database

5.	A Distributional Checklist of the Beetles (Coleoptera) of Florida

6.	California Beetle Project

7.	UNH Insect and Arachnid Collections

8.	Checklist of the Coleoptera of Oklahoma

9.	A revision of the genera Nemognatha, Zonitis, and Pseudozonitis (Coleoptera, Meloidae) in America north of Mexico, with.... Enns, W.R. 1956. University of Kansas Scientific Bulletin 37(17): 685-909.

10.	Field Guide to Beetles of California Arthur V. Evans and James N. Hogue. 2006. University of California Press.

11.	Peterson Field Guides: Beetles Richard E. White. 1983. Houghton Mifflin Company.

12.	The Natural History of Pollination Michael Proctor, Peter Yeo, and Andrew Lack. 1996.

Contributed by Tony DiTerlizzi on 22 January, 2005 - 6:44pm
Additional contributions by cotinis, Hartmut Wisch, Mike Quinn, v belov
Last updated 9 October, 2021 - 11:53am

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