Biology:Epuraea

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Short description: Genus of beetles

Epuraea
Epuraea aestiva (Linné, 1758) (28983992963).png
Epuraea aestiva
Scientific classification e
Domain: Eukaryota
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Arthropoda
Class: Insecta
Order: Coleoptera
Infraorder: Cucujiformia
Family: Nitidulidae
Subfamily: Epuraeinae
Genus: Epuraea
Erichson, 1843
Synonyms
  • Haptoncus Murray, 1864

Epuraea is a genus of sap-feeding beetles in the family Nitidulidae, first described in 1843 by Wilhelm Ferdinand Erichson.[1][2] There are at least 40 described species in Epuraea.[1][3] Their most notable food source is sap but these beetles also feed on organic matter such as fruits, flowers, fungi, decaying plant tissue, and the tissue of dead animals.[4] Some species occur in bumblebee nests.[5] Epuraea beetles commonly overwinter underneath logs or in soil.[4]

Description

According to a key to North American nitidulid genera, Epuraea has the following combination of features: head vertical, labrum free, prothorax not margined at base, elytra truncate apically to expose only pygidium (and, at most, the posterior edge of the penultimate abdominal tergite), middle and hind tibiae with two rows of small marginal spines on their outer edges, a tarsal formula of 5-5-5 (meaning each tarsus has five segments), and the first three tarsomeres bilobed.[5]

Epuraea rufa

See also

References

  • Parsons, Carl T. (1943). "A revision of Nearctic Nitidulidae (Coleoptera)". Bulletin of the Museum of Comparative Zoology, vol. 92, no. 3, 121–278.

Further reading

  • Ross H. Arnett (30 July 2000). American Insects: A Handbook of the Insects of America North of Mexico. CRC Press. ISBN 978-0-8493-0212-1. 
  • Richard E. White. (1983). Peterson Field Guides: Beetles. Houghton Mifflin Company.

External links

Wikidata ☰ Q15635966 entry