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Home » Guide » Arthropods (Arthropoda) » Hexapods (Hexapoda) » Insects (Insecta) » True Bugs, Cicadas, Hoppers, Aphids and Allies (Hemiptera) » True Bugs (Heteroptera) » Cimicomorpha » Assassin Bugs (Reduviidae) » Harpactorinae » Apiomerus

Genus Apiomerus

Classification · Synonyms and other taxonomic changes · Explanation of Names · Numbers · Size · Identification · Range · Habitat · Food · Life Cycle · Remarks · See Also · Works Cited
Assassin bug - Apiomerus crassipes Unknown insect - Apiomerus crassipes Assassin bug - Apiomerus crassipes Apiomerus spissipes Apiomerus longispinis? - Apiomerus longispinis Apiomerus spissipes White Kissing Bug, Triatominae? - Apiomerus longispinis Apiomerus crassipes? - Apiomerus crassipes
Classification
Kingdom Animalia (Animals)
Phylum Arthropoda (Arthropods)
Subphylum Hexapoda (Hexapods)
Class Insecta (Insects)
Order Hemiptera (True Bugs, Cicadas, Hoppers, Aphids and Allies)
Suborder Heteroptera (True Bugs)
Infraorder Cimicomorpha
Family Reduviidae (Assassin Bugs)
Subfamily Harpactorinae
Genus Apiomerus
Synonyms and other taxonomic changes
Herega Amyot & Serville 1843, Dicrobdallus Stål 1868, Callibdallus Stål 1868
Szerlip(1) described several species in a dissertation (see discussion) that got formally published only decades thereafter(2)
Explanation of Names
Apiomerus Hahn 1831
Greek apios 'long' + meron 'thigh' (Amyot & Serville 1843)
Numbers
~110 spp. total(3); currently, 10 spp. are known in the US (with another species described by Szerlip(1) presumably awaiting official description a la(2)):
crassipes group (6 species): A. californicus, A. cazieri, A. crassipes, A. floridensis, A. montanus, A. spissipes
pictipes group (1 species): A. flaviventris
longispinis group(?)(1 species): A. longispinis
subpiceus group(?)(2 species): A. immundus, A. subpiceus
Size
12-20 mm
Identification
Variably colored: red with blackish-brown markings or brown with yellowish markings. Dense short hair on head, thorax, and legs. Distance between simple eyes greater than the distance between compound eyes. 2nd antennal segment rather comblike, not subdivided into small ringlike units. Nymph is dark and reddish.
Range
n. US to Argentina; transcontinental in the US, except the Pacific Northwest, with greatest diversity in the southwest
Habitat
Meadows, fields, gardens, deserts, mountains, coastal regions
Food
Other insects, especially bees
Life Cycle
Eggs are attached to foliage. Nymphs, like adults, are voracious predators. 1 generation or more a year in the North.
Remarks
Some spp. have sticky material on foretibiae to hold prey(4). Females use these plant resins in maternal care(2).
our only representative of the primarily neotropical tribe Apiomerini Amyot & Servile 1843 ("New World Resin Bugs"), that contains 12 genera(3)
See Also
Rhiginia
Rhynocoris
Works Cited
1.Biosystematic revision of the genus Apiomerus (Hemiptera: Reduviidae) in North and Central America
Szerlip, S. L. . 1980.
2.Revision of the crassipes and pictipes species groups of Apiomerus Hahn (Hemiptera: Reduviidae: Harpactorinae)
Berniker L., Szerlip S., Forero D., Weirauch C. 2011. Zootaxa 2949: 1–113.
3.Phylogeny and character evolution in the bee-assassins (Insecta: Heteroptera: Reduviidae)
Forero D., Berniker L., Weirauch C. 2013. Mol. Phylogenet. Evol. 66: 283-302 [Epub 2012 Oct 16].
4.True Bugs of the World (Hemiptera:Heteroptera): Classification and Natural History
Randall T. Schuh & James Alexander Slater. 1995. 1995. Cornell University Press, Ithaca, New York.
Contributed by Troy Bartlett on 14 March, 2004 - 8:26pm
Additional contributions by cotinis, Beatriz Moisset, Chuck Entz, drswanny, v belov, Nathaniel Green
Last updated 23 November, 2024 - 2:22pm

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