Identification, Images, & Information
For Insects, Spiders & Their Kin
For the United States & Canada
Clickable Guide
Interactive image map to choose major taxa Moths Butterflies Flies Caterpillars Flies Dragonflies Flies Mantids Cockroaches Bees and Wasps Walkingsticks Earwigs Ants Termites Hoppers and Kin Hoppers and Kin Beetles True Bugs Fleas Grasshoppers and Kin Ticks Spiders Scorpions Centipedes Millipedes

Calendar
Upcoming Events

National Moth Week was July 19-27, and the Summer 2025 gathering in Louisiana, July 19-27

Photos of insects and people from the 2024 BugGuide gathering in Idaho July 24-27

Moth submissions from National Moth Week 2024

Photos of insects and people from the 2022 BugGuide gathering in New Mexico, July 20-24

Photos of insects and people from the Spring 2021 gathering in Louisiana, April 28-May 2

Photos of insects and people from the 2019 gathering in Louisiana, July 25-27


Subfamily Meloinae

Representative Images

Large blue termite??? - Meloe angusticollis Beetle in Arizona - Lytta magister beetle - Meloe impressus Blister Beetle - Epicauta puncticollis blister beetle - Lytta reticulata Beetle ID request - Cysteodemus armatus - male - female Epicauta maculata? - Epicauta Orange Epicauta on Solidago gigantea - Epicauta ferruginea

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 Meloinae

Numbers

with 267 spp. in 13 genera of 6 tribes, this is by far the largest subfamily in our area(1)(2); one tribe is not represented in the New World

Remarks

each of the genera Pyrota, Epicauta, Lytta, and Meloe belongs to its own tribe, the tribal placement of Spastonyx is uncertain, and the rest of our genera (7) are all members of the tribe Eupomphini(2)

Works Cited

1.American Insects: A Handbook of the Insects of America North of Mexico
Ross H. Arnett. 2000. CRC Press.
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.