British Insects: the Families of Hemiptera
British Insects: the Families of Hemiptera |
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This data set is generated from a DELTA database (Dallwitz 1980; Dallwitz, Paine, and Zurcher 1993). The original intention of the ‘British Entomology’ suite of packages, of which it forms part, was primarily to present scans of the fine hand-coloured engravings of insects in John Curtis’s British Insects: illustrations and descriptions of the genera of insects found in Great Britain and Ireland (1824–1840. For further information on this aspect, see Notes on John Curtis’s British Entomology). In addition to presenting Curtis’s and other early illustrations, however, all the ‘British Entomology’ subsets incorporate descriptive data organized under the DELTA system, and purport to offer at least partial identification and information retrieval facilities via the interactive program Intkey. The extent to which they succeed at this early stage of development has yet to be determined, but in any case the DELTA data (from which updates of the interactive packages are easily generated) are readily accessible for improving, correcting and extending.
With more work, this package would permit reliable identification of all the families of British Hemiptera, via standard morphological and ecological characters. At this stage, it carries preliminary but hopefully workable descriptions of all the families currently recognised as ‘British’, except that the Aphidoidea and Coccidoidea are temporarily represented by outdated, sensu lato versions of the Aphididae and Coccididae. The families are extensively illustrated, Curtis’s plates being supplemented by scans from Edwards (1896, Homoptera) and Southwood and Leston (1959, Hemiptera) . Family descriptions were compiled, in the first instance, from the detailed taxonomic descriptions and keys provided by Woodward et al. (in Britton et al. 1970) and Imms (1957); then checked and extended with reference to Unwin’s excellent AIDGAP key (2001), and further improved via Dolling’s (1991) account. The latter presents detailed information on nymphs, which needs to be incorporated; and a continuing operation involves gathering descriptive data from the classic Southwood and Leston treatment of British land and water bugs, which has never been updated or superseded and is sadly out of print.
The nomenclature was initially aligned with the original checklist of Kloet and Hincks (1945), after which the rather numerous names not listed by them were nearly all tracked down with resort to the Second Edition of that work (Southwood et al. 1964). A few names not located are indicated by quotation marks in the Intkey displays of descriptions and images, and the plates involved are presented under the pseudo-taxon ‘Unidentified Images’.
Curtis’s plates are cited in the Intkey displays of taxon images, and for at least one example in each family, as well as for all the genera and species originally described and illustrated by him in British Entomology, these are accompanied by scans of his text. As well as legends for the illustrations and formal taxonomic descriptions, the latter offer numerous examples of his entertaining, informative and elegantly expressed notes on sources of specimens, morphological interpretations, classificatory methodology, general biology, etc. We recommend (for example) the erudite exposition on the ‘affinities’ of Gampsocoris (Berytidae), invoking comparative morphology and ecology; and the delicious description of the Bed-bug, with alarming advice on how to control it.
Family assignments of all the insects illustrated have been checked at family level, in effect with reference to the family descriptions in the cited works, by ‘identifying’ the illustrations using the Intkey package. While it has thus been ascertained that the illustrations conform reasonably well with the family assignments, checking on the generic and specific identities of the insects depicted has so far been fairly superficial. Persons wishing to use the pictures for their own, critical purposes should take the necessary precautions for themselves.