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Home » Guide » Arthropods (Arthropoda) » Hexapods (Hexapoda) » Insects (Insecta) » Beetles (Coleoptera) » Water, Rove, Scarab, Long-horned, Leaf and Snout Beetles (Polyphaga) » Series Cucujiformia » Longhorn and Leaf Beetles (Chrysomeloidea) » Leaf Beetles (Chrysomelidae) » Skeletonizing Leaf Beetles and Flea Beetles (Galerucinae) » Flea Beetles (Alticini) » Disonycha Genus Group » Disonycha

Genus Disonycha

Classification · Explanation of Names · Numbers · Size · Identification · Range · Food · Life Cycle · Remarks · Works Cited

Flea Beetles (Alticini) - Disonycha procera

Pigweed Flea Beetle - Disonycha glabrata

Seen a few look a likes in BG - Disonycha politula

Classification

Kingdom Animalia (Animals)

Phylum Arthropoda (Arthropods)

Subphylum Hexapoda (Hexapods)

Class Insecta (Insects)

Order Coleoptera (Beetles)

Suborder Polyphaga (Water, Rove, Scarab, Long-horned, Leaf and Snout Beetles)

No Taxon (Series Cucujiformia)

Superfamily Chrysomeloidea (Longhorn and Leaf Beetles)

Family Chrysomelidae (Leaf Beetles)

Subfamily Galerucinae (Skeletonizing Leaf Beetles and Flea Beetles)

Tribe Alticini (Flea Beetles)

No Taxon (Disonycha Genus Group)

Genus Disonycha

Explanation of Names

Disonycha Chevrolat 1836

'double-clawed'

Numbers

36 spp. in our area, ~150 spp. total(1)

Size

4-8 mm

Identification

Large alticines, elytra usually striped, hind pronotal corners angular(2), or as Ciegler (2007)(3) puts it:

"The basal margin of the pronotum is distinctive in being anteriorly angulate near the hind angle, so that angle is set farther from the elytra than in most of the beetles," e.g.

incomplete key to spp. in(4), D. arizonae and barberi treated in(5)

Keys are based on, and designed for, collection specimens. Soon after death, however, the vivid colours begin to fade, and only black remains black.

White, yellow, red become just shades of straw or brown. Live colouration is rarely mentioned in descriptions.

Range

New World; throughout the US & so. Canada(1)

Food

a diverse array of plants; larvae are folivorous(1), most spp. feed on weeds(2)

Life Cycle

Larvae often found together with adults on host plants(1)

Remarks

Still missing in the guide as of May 2022:

D. antennata Jacoby 1884 (all red); examples from Mexico

D. funerea (Randall 1838) (all black, resembles Kuschelina lugens);

plus striped species:

D. alabamae Schaeffer 1919 (median vitta close to sublateral)

D. brevicornis Schaeffer 1931 (old records from Colorado, may be based on mislabeled specimens(4))

D. limbicollis (LeConte 1857) (CA, NV; resembles D. uniguttata)

D. pluriligata (LeConte 1858)

D. schaefferi Blake 1934

Of some of the latter we may have images, but ID is pending.

Works Cited

1.	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.

2.	Peterson Field Guides: Beetles Richard E. White. 1983. Houghton Mifflin Company.

3.	Leaf and Seed Beetles of South Carolina Janet Ciegler. 2007. Clemson University.

4.	Revision of the Beetles of the Genus Disonycha Occuring in America North of Mexico Doris Holmes Blake. 1933. Proceedings of the United States National Museum, Vol 82.

5.	New species of chrysomelid beetles of the genera Trirhabda and Disonycha Doris H. Blake. 1951. Journal of The Washington Academy of Sciences, Vol. 41, No. 10, pp. 324-328.

Contributed by Cotinis on 1 July, 2004 - 5:51pm
Additional contributions by Mike Boone, Mike Quinn, Boris Bueche, v belov, Edward Ruden
Last updated 23 May, 2022 - 12:36pm

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