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Family Blissidae

The smell of Spartina - Ischnodemus falicus - male - female Chinch Bug? - Ischnodemus conicus Blissidae - Ischnodemus falicus Ischnodemus sallei - male Ischnodemus - Ischnodemus brunnipennis mating spartina bugs - Ischnodemus falicus - male - female Male, Toonglasa umbrata? - Toonglasa umbrata - male Blissidae - Ischnodemus falicus
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 Pentatomomorpha
Superfamily Lygaeoidea
Family Blissidae
Synonyms and other taxonomic changes
formerly treated under Lygaeidae; revised in Slater (1979)(1)
Explanation of Names
Blissidae Stål 1862
Numbers
30 spp. in 4 genera in our area,* 435 spp. in 50 genera worldwide(2)(3)(4)
*Blissus 16 spp., Ischnodemus 12, Toonglasa 1, Wheelerodemus 1
Size
3‒15+ mm worldwide(5)
Identification
see (1)(6)
Range
throughout NA; primarily tropical globally, with several centers of endemism on various continents; Ischnodemus is the only subcosmopolitan genus (mostly tropical)(2)
Food
hosts: various monocots; blissids often live cryptically in leaf-sheaths (laminaphiles) and, unlike most lygaeoids, feed on vegetative parts(2); our spp. on grasses(7)
Works Cited
1.The systematics, phylogeny, and zoogeography of the Blissinae of the world (Hemiptera, Lygaeidae)
J. A. Slater. 1979. Bulletin of the AMNH, Vol. 165, article 1.
2.Zoological catalogue of Australia: Hemiptera: Heteroptera (Pentatomomorpha)
Cassis G., Gross G.F. 2002. CSIRO Publishing, 751 pp.
3.Catalog of the Heteroptera, or True Bugs of Canada and the Continental United States
Thomas J. Henry, Richard C. Froeschner. 1988. Brill Academic Publishers.
4.Wheelerodemus muhlenbergiae, a new genus and new species of Blissidae (Hemiptera: Heteroptera: Lygaeoidea) from Okla. and Texas.
Henry, T.J., Sweet, M.H. 2015. Proceedings of the Entomological Society of Washington. 117(2): 151-161.
5.Biodiversity of the Heteroptera
Henry T.J. 2009. In: Foottit R.G., Adler P.H., eds. Insect biodiversity: Science and society. Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell: 223−263.
6.Seed Bugs of Virginia (Heteroptera: Lygaeidae)
Richard L. Hoffman. 1996. Virginia Museum of Natural History.
7.How to Know the True Bugs
Slater, James A., and Baranowski, Richard M. 1978. Wm. C. Brown Company.