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STAPHYLINOIDEA

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Originally appearing in Volume V06, Page 671 of the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica.
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STAPHYLINOIDEA .—The members of this tribe may be easily recognized by their wing-nervuration. See also:

Close to a transverse See also:fold near the See also:base of the wing, the median nervure divides into branches which extend to the wing-margin; there is a second transverse fold near the tip of the wing, and See also:cross nervures are altogether wanting. There are four malpighian tubes, and all five tarsal segments are usually recognizable. With very few exceptions, the larva in this See also:group is active and campodeiform, with cerci and elongate legs as in the See also:Adephaga, but the See also:leg has only four segments and one claw. punctata. See also:Europe. (See also:Sexton See also:Beetle). Europe. The Silphidae, or carrion beetles, See also:form one of the best-known families of this group. They are rotund or elongate See also:insects with conical front haunches, the elytra generally covering (fig. 10) the whole dorsal region of the See also:abdomen, but sometimes leaving as many as four terga exposed (fig. II).

Some of these beetles are brightly coloured, while others are dull See also:

black. They are usually found in carrion, and the See also:species of Necrophorus (fig. II) and Necrophaga are valuable scavengers from their See also:habit of burying small vertebrate carcases which may serve as See also:food for their larvae. At this See also:work a number of individuals are associated together. The larvae that live underground have spiny dorsal plates, while those of the Silpha (fig. Io) and other genera that go openly about in See also:search of food resemble See also:wood-lice. About See also:I000 species of Silphidae are known. Allied to the Silphidae are a number of small and obscure families, for which reference must be made to monographs of the See also:order. Of See also:special See also:interest among these are the Histeridae, compact beetles (fig. 12) with very hard cuticle and somewhat abbreviated elytra, with over 2000 species, most of which live on decaying See also:matter, and Hi.ster iv-maculatus Oxyporus See also:rufus. Stenus biguttatus. (Mimic Beetle).

Europe. Europe. Europe. the curious little Pselaphidae, with three-segmented tarsi, elongate palpi, and shortened abdomen; the latter are usually found in ants' nests, where they are tended by the ants, which take a sweet fluid secreted among little tufts of See also:

hair on the beetles' bodies; these beetles, which are carried about by the ants, sometimes devour their larvae. The Trichopterygidae, with their delicate narrow fringed wings, are the smallest of all beetles, while the Platypsyllidae consist of only a single species of curious form found on the See also:beaver. The Staphylinidae, or rove-beetles—a large See also:family of nearly Io,000 species—may be known by their very See also:short elytra, which See also:cover only two of the abdominal segments, leaving the elongate See also:hind-See also:body with seven or eight exposed, See also:firm terga (See also:figs. 13, 14). These segments are very See also:mobile, and as the rove-beetles run along they often curl the abdomen upwards and forwards like the tail of a See also:scorpion. The Staphylinid larvae are typically campodeiform. Beetles and larvae are frequently carnivorous in habit, See also:hunting for small insects under stones, or pursuing the soft-skinned grubs ofbeetles and flies that See also:bore in woody stems or succulent roots. Many Staphylinidae are See also:constant inmates of ants' nests.

End of Article: STAPHYLINOIDEA

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