Belidae (Coleoptera: Curculionoidae)

The Belidae Schoenherr 1826 is one of the eight families of weevil, and contains some of the beetles that obligately pollinate zamiacean and stangeriacean cycads (Crowson, 1991), hence their common name, cycad weevils (I’ve also seen them referred to as “primitive weevils”, a rather inaccurate name). There are ~375 species in 38 genera (Slipinsky, Leschen & Lawrence, 2011). The drawings above (taken and modified from Capinera (2008)) show how diverse they can be.

Checkered Beetles (Coleoptera: Cleridae)

Aphelocerus coarctus (Opitz, 2005)

The Cleridae Latreille 1802, known commonly as ham beetles or checkered beetles, are a family of brightly-coloured and hairy predatory beetles, measuring between 3 and 12 mm. They’re easily recognisable by having a narrow pronotum (“neck”), with both the head and the wing bases being wider than it. Clerid larvae are recognisable by having strongly ventrally protracted mouthparts.

Fireflies (Coleoptera: Lampyridae)

The Lampyridae Raffinesque 1815 are the beetles commonly known as fireflies and lightning bugs. There are over 2000 species in over 100 genera, with this being a quarter of the expected diversity (Viviani, 2001). They’re found all over the world and in all sorts of habitats, including aquatic ones (Fu et al., 2005).

Onthophagus Horn Dimorphism

One of my side-projects at the moment is setting up a project to observe the behaviour and life history of male Onthophagus dung beetles (Scarabaeidae). This post will introduce why this is of interest (to me, at least).

Weevils (Coleoptera: Curculionoidae)

For a nicely-formatted PDF of this post, click here!

Along with the Chrysomelidae (leaf beetles) and Tenebrionidae (darkling beetles), the superfamily Curculionidae (weevils, bark beetles and ambrosia beetles; from now on collectively referred to as “weevils”) are some of the most damaging pests in agriculture. As larvae, some may feed on roots, others develop in roots (stealing nutrients); some cause leaf or stem galls; many burrow into leaves and stems. Adults may lay eggs in seed pods or undeveloped flower buds, while many adults attack trees, irrespective of the health of the tree. Many eat fruit. Basically, nobody with a plantation wants weevils – a fact recognised metaphorically as far back as ~200 BC, in the Pluteus play Curculio, where Curculio (the main character) is a social parasite interested only in food. On the other hand, some species can be exploited as biocontrol agents against weeds and other invasive pest plants.

Beetles: Chemical Defence

As the rest of this series showed, beetles are a taxonomically very diverse group. They are also very numerous within each habitat, indicating that they also have a suite of ecological adaptations that allow a large number of them to survive, despite the constant threat from microorganisms, other insects and even vertebrates. One of these adaptations, present in many (but not all) beetles, is chemical defence, which evolved at least 30 times independently in the beetles. Think of staphylinids, the family of beetle that has a reduced elytra: it has lost its main form of protection. However, this is made up for by a number of abdominal glands that not only secrete irritant toxins, but also adhesive molecules that will stop the mouthparts of their ant and fly predators from moving.

Beetles: Cucujiformia

There are a whopping 6 superfamilies within this series, which includes such diverse beetles as ladybirds, weevils and longhorn beetles. They’re the largest series there is, so I’ll be skipping many families.

Beetles: Bostrichiformia

The bostrichoforms are split into two superfamilies, the Bostrichoidea and the Derodontidea (which only has one family).  The most notable family here is that of the skin beetles. I really don’t know much about the others. I’ll do my best to dig up interesting shit though.

Beetles: Elateriformia

Before we start off with these guys, an apology is in order: I’ve had 4 projects running in parallel this week, and it took a while to get my time properly planned out. That’s why I wrote nothing on here. Sorry.

You will definitely recognise the elateriforms – they include some of the most common beetles (fireflies, for example). As usual, I didn’t sort the families in any particular order – the larger and more famous ones tend to be near the end though (it’s Writing 101 to build up suspense!)

Beetles: Scarabaeiformia

Ah, the scarabaeoids. As for as diversity goes, they live everywhere (except the oceans) and eat anything, from plants to shit. Some are solitary, others are social (between themselves or with other animals). They’re favorites among collectors: they’re large and often brightly-coloured. Also, they’re mentioned in the titles of kickass movies (I only bring that up because Monique Parent’s in it and she’s beautiful).