| | Insects of Britain and Ireland: the families of Hemiptera |
Spurge Bugs.
Salient features of adults. Terrestrial; littoral (sometimes), or not littoral.
Phytophagous (on Euphorbia species). Small to large; 8–14 mm long; fliers; emitting repugnatorial liquid as a defence reaction (? - cf. Pentatomidae); relatively stout bodied; not stilt-legged; with conspicuous dark-and-pale banding on the antennae and legs. Head non-linear. Rostrum clearly separated ventrally from the prosternum by a sclerotized gula; 4 segmented. Antennae from the upper part of the head; longer than the head, readily visible from above; 4 segmented; non-aristate. Ocelli present. Scutellum relatively small. Fore-wings well developed; differentiated into a basally thickened and a distally membranous region; with a clavus. Membrane of the hemelytron with numerous veins reaching or almost reaching the margin. Tarsi 3 segmented. The abdomen without ventral silvery pubescence. The second dorsal abdominal scent gland aperture not displaced into the fifth tergite, and distant from the first gland.
Dark brown bugs, with black and yellow banded antennae, front of the head bilobed.
Taxonomy. Suborder Heteroptera; Pentatomoidea.
British representation. 2 species in Britain; genera 1. Dicranocephalus.
Illustrations. • Dicranocephalus agilis (Southwood & Leston). • Stenocephalus agilis, with Coreidae, Rhopalidae, etc.: Saunders, 1892.. COREIDAE. 1, Bathysolen nubilus. 2, Ceraleptus lividus. 3, Coriomeris denticulatus. ALYDIDAE. 4, Alydus calcaratus. STENOCEPHALIDAE. 5, Stenocephalus agilis. RHOPALIDAE. 6, Corizus hyoscyami. 7, Strictopleurus punctatonervosus. 8, Aeschyntelus maculatus. 9, Corizus capitatus Fab., = ? (cf. Rhopalus subrufus). 10, Rhopalus parumpunctatus. 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’.
