| | Insects of Britain and Ireland: the families of Hemiptera |
Unless indicated otherwise, the following attributes are implicit throughout the descriptions, except where the characters concerned are inapplicable.
Salient features of adults. Not littoral; the insects free living.
Represented by ‘normal’ insects only; not extremely noisy; not jumpers; not stilt-legged; without conspicuous dark-and-pale banding of antennae and legs. Head not transversely grooved between the eyes. Rostrum clearly arising from the head. Antennae with segments 3 + 4 less than twice as long as 1 + 2. Thorax not crested. Scutellum relatively small. Fore-wings without costal fracture and cuneus; without conspicuously raised, reticulate venation; not finely reticulate throughout. Trochanters not apparently segmented. Fore-legs non-raptorial. The posterior tibiae without a large, moveable apical spur. The abdomen without a respiratory siphon; without secretory ‘cornicles’. The second visible abdominal sternite without a long, spine-like anterior process.
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’.