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]
| Epuraea | |
|---|---|
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| Epuraea aestiva | |
Scientific classification 
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| Domain: | Eukaryota |
| Kingdom: | Animalia |
| Phylum: | Arthropoda |
| Class: | Insecta |
| Order: | Coleoptera |
| Family: | Nitidulidae |
| Subfamily: | Epuraeinae |
| Genus: | Epuraea Erichson, 1843 |
| Synonyms | |
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Description
editAccording 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]
See also
editReferences
edit- ^ a b "Epuraea Genus Information". BugGuide.net. Retrieved 27 January 2018.
- ^ "Australian Faunal Directory: Genus Epuraea Erichson, 1843". biodiversity.org.au. Retrieved 20 March 2022.
- ^ "Epuraea Report". Integrated Taxonomic Information System. Retrieved 27 January 2018.
- ^ a b Jang, Yong Seok; Kim, Dong-Soon (1 January 2014). "The first report on the winter breeding life history of Epuraea domina (Coleoptera: Nitidulidae) in a citrus grove in Jeju, Korea". Crop Protection. 55: 68–73. doi:10.1016/j.cropro.2013.10.008. ISSN 0261-2194.
- ^ a b Arnett, Ross H. Jr; Thomas, Michael C.; Skelley, Paul E.; Frank, J. Howard, eds. (19 June 2002), "NITIDULIDAE", American Beetles, Volume II (0 ed.), CRC Press, pp. 325–329, doi:10.1201/9781420041231-58, ISBN 978-0-429-12771-7, retrieved 19 June 2023
- 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
edit- 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
edit
Media related to Epuraea at Wikimedia Commons- Epuraea: images & occurrence data from GBIF
- NCBI Taxonomy Browser, Epuraea
