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Family Melyridae - Soft-winged Flower Beetles

beetle - Collops quadriguttatus - female red and black beetle - Anthocomus equestris Beetle black yellow - Attalus circumscriptus Soft-winged Flower Beetle - Collops tricolor - male Soft-winged Flower Beetle - Collops bipunctatus - female Collops balteatus - female Grey and Black Spotted Beetle - Listrus Soft-winged Flower Beetle - Collops grandis - female
Classification
Kingdom Animalia (Animals)
Phylum Arthropoda (Arthropods)
Subphylum Hexapoda (Hexapods)
Class Insecta (Insects)
Order Coleoptera (Beetles)
Suborder Polyphaga
No Taxon (Series Cucujiformia)
Superfamily Cleroidea
Family Melyridae (Soft-winged Flower Beetles)
Synonyms and other taxonomic changes
Includes Malachiinae and Dasytinae(1), often treated as separate families, esp. by European workers; Rhadalinae(2), formerly treated here, has been upgraded to family status(3)
Explanation of Names
Melyridae Leach 1815
Numbers
by far the largest cleroid family(3); 3 subfamilies, with >500 spp. in ~50 genera in our area (tallied from many sources) and ~6000 spp. in 300 genera total(4)
Overview of our faunaTaxa not yet in the guide are marked (*)
Family MELYRIDAE
Subfamily Malachiinae
Tribe Malachiini
Subfamily Dasytinae
Size
2-7 mm
Identification
Adult: body may have a soft appearance from the numerous erect hairs; front coxae prominent; antennae insert in front of the head above the mandibles; many species have a fleshy lobe between the tarsal claws, and some have orange eversible sacs along the sides of the abdomen that are sometimes visible [adapted from(6)]
Range
worldwide and over most of the US and so. Canada (2 spp. reach NT; none in YT-AK)(1)(7)
Habitat
adults common on flowers; larvae in various habitats, most commonly in soil, leaf litter, or under bark
Food
chiefly insects but food preferences vary; adults evidently feed on flower-visiting insects and pollen, larvae are primarily predators of other insects
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.A review of the Rhadalinae (=Aplocneminae) (Coleoptera: Melyridae)
Enid R. Peacock. 1987. Bulletin of the British Museum (Natural History). Entomology, Vol. 56, No. 3, pp. 129-170.
3.Comprehensive phylogeny of the Cleroidea (Coleoptera: Cucujiformia)
Gimmel M.L., Bocakova M., Gunter N.L., Leschen R.A.B. 2019. Sys. Entomol. 44: 527-558.
4.Order Coleoptera Linnaeus, 1758. In: Zhang Z.-Q. (ed.) Animal biodiversity: An outline of higher-level classification...
Ślipiński S.A., Leschen R.A.B., Lawrence J.F. 2011. Zootaxa 3148: 203–208.
5.Nomenclatorial corrections for Dasytidae and Malachiidae (Coleoptera)
Adriean Mayor. 2003. Insecta Mundi, 17: 85-96.
6.How to Know the Insects
Roger G. Bland, H.E. Jaques. 1978. WCB/McGraw-Hill.
7.Bousquet Y., ed. (1991) Checklist of the beetles of Canada and Alaska