British Insects: the Families of Coleoptera
British Insects: the Families of Coleoptera |
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Including Drilidae part, Lycidae part.
Glow-worms, Fireflies.
General appearance. 5–16 mm long. Body length/maximum body width 1.7–5.65. Elytral length/pronotal length 0.68–6.9. Base of prothorax not or scarcely narrower than the combined elytral bases. Greatest prothoracic width not narrower or only slightly narrower than the greatest elytral width. Beetles elongate to slender; not necked; not waisted to somewhat waisted. Upper surfaces of body non-glabrous; not bristly; with neither scales nor scale-like setae.
Detailed morphology. The head covered by the thorax. Inclination of the head slight to very strong. Eyes strongly protuberant, or not strongly protuberant; without bristles; finely facetted. Antennae very short to about half the insect's head to tail length; 6 segmented, or 8–15 segmented, or 20–40 segmented. Antennal scape not swollen. Antennae filiform. Antennal insertions visible from above; not in fossae.
Prothorax shorter than wide. Pronotal length/maximum pronotal width 0.42–0.97. Prothorax at its widest not markedly narrower than the adjoining part of the abdomen. Prothorax without notopleural sutures. Metaventrite without a transverse groove. The tarsi exhibiting bilobed segments; without ‘hidden’ segments. Mid-leg tarsi 5-segmented (in Britain); pentamerous. Claws of the mid-leg tarsi not appendaged. Front tarsi with as many segments as the mid-tarsi; 5-segmented. Hind tarsi with as many segments as the mid-tarsi; 5-segmented. Tarsal claws simple, or one-toothed or bifid; without an associated empodium. Elytra present (males), or absent (females). Elytral length/maximum width across the elytra 0.38–2.9. Elytra individually distinctly tapered to their apices (or rounded?); not meeting along the full length of the mid-line; of males covering most of the abdomen, or short, exposing several terminal abdominal tergites; exposing when long, no more than part of the terminal tergite to at least three complete abdominal tergites; not truncate; rather soft. Scutellary striole absent. Elytra non-glabrous; with epipleura (broad at the base). Wings well developed, or absent or much reduced.
Visible abdominal sternites 6–9; immovably joined 0. Abdominal segment 8 with apparently functional spiracles, or apparently without functional spiracles.
Habitat, ecology. Not predacious (not feeding at all?).
General comments. The female of Lampyris and both sexes of Phosphaenus are famously luminescent from their distal abdominal sternites.
Larvae. Larvae predacious (on snails and worms).
Classification. Suborder Polyphaga; Superfamily Cantharoidea.
British representation. Genera 2; 2 species. E.g., Lampyris noctiluca.
Illustrations. • Lampyris noctiluca, male and female (Janson 190, 191). • Lampyris noctiluca (Curtis, 1838).
To view the illustrations with detailed captions, go to the interactive key. This also 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 Coleoptera. Version: 9th June 2008. http://delta-intkey.com’.
