British Insects: the Families of Hemiptera
| British Insects: the Families of Hemiptera | |
Brachyrhinchidae, Dysodiidae. Including Aneuridae.
Flatbugs, Bark Bugs.
Salient features of adults. Terrestrial.
Mycophagous (often in plant litter, under bark, in bracket fungi, in rotting wood, etc.). Tiny to small; 3.5–9 mm long; fliers, or non-fliers; relatively stout bodied. Rostrum clearly separated ventrally from the prosternum by a sclerotized gula; 4 segmented (the first very short). Antennae longer than the head, readily visible from above; 4 segmented (all the segments short and robust); non-aristate. Ocelli absent. Metathorax with a scent-gland opening, comprising a funnel surrounded by a dull patch of elaborately sculptured cuticle, visible laterally on either side to without laterally visible scent gland openings (openings “inconspicuous”). Fore-wings well developed, or conspicuous, but much shorter than the abdomen, or vestigial or absent; in the resting insect lying more or less flat over the abdomen; when macropterous, differentiated into a basally thickened and a distally membranous region, or more or less uniform in texture (the membrane sometimes reduced or missing); of macropters, with a clavus; with conspicuously raised, reticulate venation, or without conspicuously raised, reticulate venation. Hind coxae mobile; rotatory. Tarsi 2 segmented; two-clawed. Claws all apical. Pulvilli absent. The abdomen without ventral silvery pubescence.
Comments. Broad, very flattened, black or brown insects; head not widened behind the eyes; trochanters fused with femora; macropterous forms lacking a claval commissure - i.e., the clavi separated by the scutellum; each abdominal tergite with several sclerotized plates..
Taxonomy. Suborder Heteroptera; Aradoidea.
British representation. Genera 2; 7 species.
Illustrations: • Aneurus laevis (Original genus description. Smooth Aneurus: B. Ent. 86). • Aneurus laevis (detail: B. Ent. 86). • Aneurus laevis (dissections: B. Ent. 86). • Aneurus laevis (legend+text: B. Ent. 86). • Aneurus laevis (text: B. Ent. 86, cont.). • Aradus corticalis (Hampshire Aradus: B. Ent. 230). • Aradus corticalis (detail, dissections: B. Ent. 230). • Aradus corticalis (legend+text: B. Ent. 230). • Aradus corticalis (text: B. Ent. 230, cont.).
The interactive key offers full and partial descriptions, diagnostic descriptions, differences and similarities between taxa, lists of taxa exhibiting or lacking specified attributes, and distributions of character states within any set of taxa.
Cite this publication as: ‘Watson, L., and Dallwitz, M.J. 2003 onwards. British insects: the families of Hemiptera. Version: 9th April 2007. http://delta-intkey.com’.
