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| Insects of Britain and Ireland: the families of Hemiptera |
Berytidae, Neididae
Stilt Bugs.
Salient features of adults. Terrestrial.
Phytophagous (often on legumes). Tiny, or small; 4–12 mm long; fliers, or non-fliers; emitting repugnatorial liquid as a defence reaction; with narrow-elongate bodies; conspicuously stilt-legged. Head strongly transversely grooved (constricted) between the eyes (cf. Reduviidae). Rostrum clearly separated ventrally from the prosternum by a sclerotized gula; 4 segmented. Antennae longer than the head, readily visible from above; 4 segmented; non-aristate. Ocelli present. Fore-wings well developed to 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. Tarsi 3 segmented (?). Pulvilli present. The abdomen without ventral silvery pubescence.
Insects with red or yellow ground colour; last antennal segment expanded and with a dark tip; femora expanded and usually darkened towards the tips.
Taxonomy. Suborder Heteroptera; Lygaeoidea.
British representation. 13 species in Britain; genera 5. Berytinus, Cymus, Gampsocoris, Metatropis, Neides. E.g., Gampsocoris punctipes (Elegant Stilt-bug); Berytinus clavipes.
Illustrations. • Gampsocoris punctipes (Elegant Stilt-bug: B. Ent. 150). • Berytinus clavipes (dissections: B. Ent. 150). • G. punctipes, B. clavipes (legend+text: B. Ent. 150). • G. punctipes, B. clavipes (text: B. Ent. 150, cont.). • Cymus melanocephalus and Metatropis rufescens (Southwood & Leston). • Berytinus, Cymus, Gampsocoris, Metatropis and Neides, with Lygaeidae and Rhopalidae: Saunders, 1892.. RHOPALIDAE. 1, Myrmus miriformis, brachypterous; 1a, Myrmus miriformis, female with developed elytra. 2, Chorosoma schillingi. BERYTINIDAE. 3, Neides tipularius. 4, Berytinus crassipes; 5, Berytinus clavipes. 6, Metatropis rufescens. 7, Gampsocoris punctipes. 10, Cymus glandicolor. LYGAEIDAE. 8, Lygaeus equestris. 9, Nysius ericae. From Saunders (1892).
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’.
