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CLAVICORNIA

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Originally appearing in Volume V06, Page 672 of the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica.
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CLAVICORNIA .—This is a somewhat heterogeneous See also:

group, most of whose members are characterized by clubbed feelers and See also:simple, unbroadened tarsal segments—usually five on each foot—but in some families and genera the See also:males have less than the normal number on the feet of one pair. There are either four or six malpighian tubes. A large number of families, distinguished from each other by more or less trivial characters, are included here, and there is considerable diversity in the See also:form of the larvae. The best- known See also:family is the Hydrophilidae, in which the feelers are See also:short with less than eleven segments and the maxillary Family—the very See also:long. Some members of this family—the large See also:black Hydrophilus piceus (fig. 20), for example—are specialized for an aquatic See also:life, the See also:body being See also:convex and smooth as in the Dyticidae, and the intermediate and See also:hind-legs fringed for See also:swimming. When Hydrophilus dives it carries a See also:supply of See also:air between the elytra andthedorsal See also:surface of the See also:abdomen, while air is also entangled in the pubescence which extends beneath the abdomen on either See also:side, being scooped in bubbles by the terminal segments of the feelers when the See also:insect rises to the surface. Many of the Hydro philid ae construct, for the See also:protection of their eggs, a cocoon formed of a silky material derived from glands opening at the tip of the abdomen. That of Hydrophilus is attached to a floating See also:leaf, and is See also:pro- vided with a hollow, tapering See also:process, which projects above the surface and presumably conveys air to the enclosed eggs. Other Hydrophilidae carry their See also:egg-cocoons about with them beneath the abdomen. Many Hydrophilidae, unmodified for aquatic life, inhabit marshes. The larvae in this family are well-armoured, active and predaceous.

Of the numerous other families of the Clavicornia may be mentioned the Cucujidae and Cryptophagidae, small beetles, examples of which may be found feeding on stored seeds or See also:

vegetable refuse, and the Mycetophagidae, which devour See also:fungi. The Nitidulidae are a large family with 1600 See also:species, among which members of the genus Meligethes are often found in See also:numbers feeding on blossoms, while others live under the bark of trees and See also:prey on the grubs of See also:boring beetles.

End of Article: CLAVICORNIA

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