Family Blissidae

Classification · Synonyms and other taxonomic changes · Explanation of Names · Numbers · Size · Identification · Range · Food · Works Cited

Anthocoridae nymph? - Blissus leucopterus

Bugs on Sea Oats - Blissus arenarius - male - female

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.

Contributed by Eric R. Eaton on 8 March, 2006 - 2:32pm
Additional contributions by Mike Quinn, Ted Kropiewnicki, v belov
Last updated 13 October, 2023 - 4:41pm

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