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TaxonomyBrowse
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Genus Petalium

Tiny Beetle - Petalium debile Petalium Oligomerus? - Petalium Small brown beetle - Petalium Death-Watch Beetle? - Petalium Coleoptera - Petalium Petalium - 2 - Petalium tiny beetle – genus Cis?? - Petalium
Classification
Kingdom Animalia (Animals)
Phylum Arthropoda (Arthropods)
Subphylum Hexapoda (Hexapods)
Class Insecta (Insects)
Order Coleoptera (Beetles)
Suborder Polyphaga
Superfamily Bostrichoidea
Family Ptinidae (Death-watch and Spider Beetles)
Subfamily Dorcatominae
Genus Petalium
Synonyms and other taxonomic changes
our species revised in(1)
Explanation of Names
Petalium LeConte 1861
the name refers to the petal-shaped metasternal lobe
Numbers
23 spp. in our area(2)
Size
1.5-4 mm
Identification
quite diverse in appearance but easily recognized by:
metasternum anteriourly produced into a +/- semicircular lobe covering procoxae
a pair of small pits on pronotal sides (reduced in a few species)
look different from other Dorcatominae and may be more closely related to Gastrallus & Falsogastrallus (Anobiinae)
Range
e. US, CA (BG data)
Food
develop, insofar as known, in dry wood
Remarks
our only representative of the tribe Petaliini White 1982, that contains a total of 5 genera
Works Cited
1.A revision of the genus Petalium LeConte in the United States, Greater Antilles, and the Bahamas (Coleoptera: Anobiidae)
Ford, E.J. 1973. United States Department of Agriculture Technical Bulletin No. 1467.
2.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.