Clown beetle

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Histeridae
Hister impressa
Scientific classification
Kingdom: Animalia Phylum: Arthropoda Class: Insecta Order: Coleoptera Superfamily: Histeroidea Family: Histeridae Gyllenhal, 1808
Genera
about 330, see text

Histeridae is a family of beetles, commonly known as clown beetles or hister beetles. They have a distinctive appearance, with flattened leg segments recalling the baggy or flowing clothes of clowns or actors ("hister" is from the Latin histrio, actor). The 3,900 species of the family are found worldwide.

Characteristics

Hister unicolor

Clown beetles are small to medium sized. Two general body forms exist within the Histeridae. The more common form is nearly circular and very compact; the other form tends to be longer than wide and somewhat rectangular in shape. Many clown beetles are dark coloured, often black, but they may have red, orange, or yellow markings. There are often grooves in the beetle's underside into which the antennae and legs can be retracted when the beetle feels threatened. Their legs are flat and widened, an adaptation for digging in soil or dung. Such an adaptation is said to be fossorial.

Systematics and evolution

Hister quadrimaculatus

Histeridae belong to the superfamily Histeroidea, of the Staphyliniformia group. The family is currently divided into 330 genera and the following subfamilies:

• Abraeinae
• Chlamydopsinae
• Dendrophilinae
• Haeteriinae
• Histerinae
• Niponiinae
• Onthophilinae
• Saprininae
• Tribalinae
• Trypanaeinae
• Trypeticinae

The relationships and (monophyly) of the subfamilies are not clear yet, and recent studies have cast much doubt on the traditional views^[1].

Ecology

Clown beetles can usually be found living in dung, carrion, or animal burrows, where both the larvae and adults feed on the juvenile stages of other insects, especially those of flies. In this way clown beetles can be instrumental in controlling certain livestock pests that breed in dung. Another large group of histerids lives under bark of trees where they predate on subcortical insects (e.g. family Curculionidae: Scolytinae). The Hetaeriinae and Chlamydopsinae subfamilies are myrmecophilous

Further reading

For the Palaearctic fauna, the most up to date work is:

Kryzhanovskij & Reichardt, 1976. Beetles of Superfamily Histeroidea (families Sphaeritidae, Histeridae, Syntelidae). In: "Fauna USSR: Zhetokrylye, V. vyp.4". Leningrad, 434 pp [In Russian].

Witzgall, K. 1971: Famienreihe Histeroidea. 10. Familie: Histeridae. In Freude, H., Harde, K.W., Lohse, G.A. (Eds.): Die Käfer Mitteleuropas Vol. 3. Goecke & Evers, Krefeld: 156-189.

External links

Wikispecies has information related to:

Histeridae

• Tree of life
• Histeridae of Europe (German)

References

• Peter W. Kovarik and Michael S. Caterino, "Histeridae", in Ross H. Arnett, Jr. and Michael C. Thomas, American Beetles (CRC Press, 2001), vol. 1