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| Insects of Britain and Ireland: the families of Hemiptera |
~ Saldidae
Marine Bug.
Salient features of adults. Terrestrial, or dwelling (skating) on the surface of water; littoral (living in the intertidal zone).
Predacious, or feeding on dead arthropods (?). Tiny; about 3 mm long; non-fliers; relatively stout bodied; not stilt-legged. Head linear. Rostrum clearly separated ventrally from the prosternum by a sclerotized gula; 3 segmented. Antennae longer than the head, readily visible from above; 4 segmented; non-aristate. Ocelli absent. Scutellum relatively small. Fore-wings conspicuous, but much shorter than the abdomen. Hind coxae mobile; hinged. Tarsi 3 segmented; two-clawed. Claws all apical. Pulvilli absent. The abdomen without ventral silvery pubescence.
A reddish brown bug, characterised by the concave margin of the reduced fore-wings.
Taxonomy. Suborder Heteroptera; Saldoidea.
British representation. 1 species in Britain (A. bonnairei); genera 1. Aepophilus, a monotypic of the Atlantic coasts of Europe, perhaps extending to Morocco.
Illustrations. • Aeophilus bonnairei (Southwood & Leston). • Aeophilus, with assorted other water bugs.
We advise against extracting comparative information from the descriptions. This is much more easily achieved using the DELTA data files or the interactive key, which allows access to the character list, illustrations, 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. See also Guidelines for using data taken from Web publications.
Cite this publication as: ‘Watson, L., and Dallwitz, M.J. 2003 onwards. Insects of Britain and Ireland: the families of Hemiptera. Version: 27th July 2019. delta-intkey.com’.
