Identification, Images, & Information
For Insects, Spiders & Their Kin
For the United States & Canada
Clickable Guide
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

TaxonomyBrowse
Info
ImagesLinksBooksData

Family Tingidae - Lace Bugs

Bug - Acalypta parvula Aphids? - Corythucha Tingidae: Corythucha cydoniae? - Corythucha cydoniae Tingidae, ventral - Atheas mimeticus Dictyla sp. ? - Dictyla labeculata tiny bugs on bur oak leaf Corythucha from hawthorn - Corythucha Disguised insect - Corythucha
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 Cimicomorpha
Superfamily Miroidea
Family Tingidae (Lace Bugs)
Synonyms and other taxonomic changes
Tingitidae
treated by some in a suprfamily of its own, Tingoidea
Explanation of Names
Tingidae LaPorte 1832
Numbers
~165 spp. in 24 genera in our area (all but one in the Tinginae)(1), ~2,350 spp. in >280 genera worldwide(2) arranged in 3 subfamilies(3); at least two of the genera recorded in NA represent adventive European spp. (images: a, b)
Size
3‒5 mm (NA)(1), 2‒8+ mm worldwide(4)
Identification
Adults have a lacelike pattern of the dorsum; nymphs usually spiny and black. Other important characters (5): ocelli absent • beak and antennae 4-segmented • scutellum hidden under posterior portion of pronotum • tarsi 2-segmented
Keys to FL spp. in (6)
habitus photos of 60 spp.(7), including 15 spp. not yet in the guide
Range
worldwide and throughout NA(1)
Food
Feed mainly on leaves, causing yellow spotting and sometimes browning and death of the leaves(8)
Life Cycle
Eggs usually laid on the underside of leaves near veins(1) in the domatia(9)
Print References
(10)(11)(12)
Bailey N.S. (1951) The Tingoidea of New England and their biology. Entomologica Americana (N.S.) 31: 1‒140.
Bailey N.S. (1960) Additions to the bioecology of the New England Tingidae and Piesmidae (Heteroptera). Psyche 66: 63‒69.
Internet References
(13)
Works Cited
1.American Insects: A Handbook of the Insects of America North of Mexico
Ross H. Arnett. 2000. CRC Press.
2.Guilbert E. (2013) Lace bugs database
3.Phylogeny of Cantacaderinae (Het.: Tingidae) revisited after the description of a new genus and new species from New Caledonia
Guilbert E. 2012. Eur. J. Entomol. 109: 111-116.
4.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.
5.An Introduction to Entomology
John Henry Comstock. 1933. The Comstock publishing Co.
6.Key to Tingidae of Florida, by A. Bisson, S. Clark, M. Lehnert, R. Stein
7.Photo gallery of the Spencer Entomological Collection
8.Borror and DeLong's Introduction to the Study of Insects
Norman F. Johnson, Charles A. Triplehorn. 2004. Brooks Cole.
9.Hidden Company that Trees Keep: Life from Treetops to Root Tips
James B. Nardi. 2023. Princeton University Press.
10.Lacebugs of the World: A Catalog (Hemiptera: Tingidae)
Drake, C.J. & F.A Ruhoff. 1965. Bulletin of the United States National Museum, (243): 1-634, 57 plates, 6 figures.
11.The Tingitoidea of Ohio (Ohio Biological Survey Bulletin: volume 2 number 4-Bulletin 8)
Osborn, Herbert, and Drake, Carl John. 1916. Ohio State University.
12.Tingoidea of Oklahoma (Hemiptera)
Drew W.A., Arnold D.C. 1977. Proc. Oklahoma Acad. Sci. 57: 29-31.
13.TingID: Identification of lace bugs intercepted at U.S. ports of entry