Bullet bugs
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| Dallas , 1851 |
Ball bugs (Plataspididae; Syn .: Plataspidae) are a family of bugs (Heteroptera) within the suborder Pentatomomorpha . About 560 species in 56 genera are known of them. In Europe, four species are represented, one of which, coptosoma scutellatum also occurs in Central Europe. Their main distribution area are the tropics. With one exception, the animals are common in the eastern hemisphere. Megacopta cribraria was introduced into the United States of America by humans and is a widespread pest there. Ball bugs are beetle-like animals with a strongly rounded, usually shiny dark colored body. Most species feed on legumes (Fabaceae).
features
The bugs are 2 to 20 millimeters long and have an egg-shaped or hemispherical, strongly curved body, which gives them a resemblance to beetles. They are often shiny in color and have a variable body color, which is usually black or brown with a metallic sheen. There are also heavily pustulated species. Your scutellum is greatly enlarged and covers the abdomen and most of the hemielytras , of which only the outer part of the corium is uncovered. Many species are wider than they are long, and in some species the mandibles have a horn-like shape. The feature of the enlarged label is probably a convergence that has developed in parallel several times within the pentatomoid .
Their head is often rounded, flattened, and keeled. The feelers deflect below the edge of the head and are not visible from above. They are five-membered, but appear four-membered, as the division between the second and third segments is only weak. The second segment of the labium is greatly enlarged, flattened and sack-shaped in some species; the styli are partially wound up in it. The four-membered labium is thickened in many species, in some also the frontal plate ( clypeus ). The pronotum is almost trapezoidal. The wings are heavily modified. The forewings (Hemielytren) are much longer than the body, the hindwings are built so that they can be folded together with transverse constrictions below the shield. The tarsi are two-part. The sternas on the abdomen have a sloping, straight furrow on each side. In the nymphs , the scent gland openings on the abdomen are located between the third to sixth tergum . Those between the third and fourth are greatly reduced in some species. The males have a spermatheca with a well developed pump and two flanges.
Occurrence
The family is widespread in the eastern hemisphere and has the main focus of its distribution in the tropics, particularly the Orientalis . Only a few species occur in the temperate latitudes of the Palearctic . However, Megacopta cribraria was introduced into the United States of America, where it first appeared in 2009 and has spread rapidly in six southeastern states in just four years.
Way of life
The ball bugs are herbivores and mainly suckle on legumes (Fabaceae). The species of the genus Coptosoma lay their eggs on the leaves or stems of the plants. The nymphs live gregariously in sometimes very large aggregations. When disturbed, the animals quickly fly away in large numbers, giving off the scent of their stinking glands. You will return to your original sitting position after a few minutes. The long styli of some species initially led authors to assume that the animals suckle on fungi like the bark bugs (Aradidae) and Termitaphididae . However, they actually suck on phloem sap and can pierce relatively thick bark down to the vascular bundles. This is confirmed by the symbiosis with ants that protect the bugs in order to eat their honeydew excretions , as can be observed, for example, with the ball bugs of the genus Tropidotylus , which occurs together with the ant species Meranoplus mucronatus .
Taxonomy and systematics
Dallas was the first to place ball bugs in family rank in 1851. Franz Xaver Fieber named them Arthropteridae in 1861. Carl Stål considered them in works from 1865 and 1876 as a subfamily of the stink bug (Pentatomidae). Many of the early bug researchers such as Kirkaldy (1909) followed this view. Leston restored family rank in 1952, but referred to them as Brachyplatidae. The family status of the group has long been unclear. After an investigation based on morphological features and DNA sequences from 2008 by Grazia et al. showed that the family monophyly is sufficiently well founded. They are based on the ninth laterotergites, which adjoin each other and which partially or completely cover the tenth segment of the abdomen. Contrary to all previous assumptions, the investigation suggested a basal position of the family within the Pentatomoidea .
The relationship status within the family and thus a possible division into subfamilies has not yet been researched.
The following species occur in Europe:
- Coptosoma costale Stål , 1853
- Coptosoma mucronatum Seidenstucker , 1963
- Coptosoma sandahli Reuter , 1881
- Coptosoma scutellatum ( Geoffroy , 1785)
supporting documents
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b c d e Family Plataspidae. (No longer available online.) Australian Biological Resources Study. Australian Faunal Directory, archived from the original on September 24, 2015 ; Retrieved April 25, 2014 . Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice.
- ↑ a b Plataspididae. Fauna Europaea, accessed April 25, 2014 .
- ^ Ekkehard Wachmann , Albert Melber, Jürgen Deckert: Bugs. Volume 4: Pentatomomorpha II: Pentatomoidea: Cydnidae, Thyreocoridae, Plataspidae, Acanthosomatidae, Scutelleridae, Pentatomidae. (= The animal world of Germany and the adjacent parts of the sea according to their characteristics and their way of life . 81st part). Goecke & Evers, Keltern 2008, ISBN 978-3-937783-36-9 , pp. 27 ff .
- ↑ a b c d e f g R. T. Schuh, JA Slater: True Bugs of the World (Hemiptera: Heteroptera). Classification and Natural History. Cornell University Press, Ithaca, New York 1995, pp. 236ff.
- ↑ a b University of Florida, IFAS: Featured Creatures ( English ) Retrieved June 30, 2013.
- ↑ a b Jocelia Grazia, Randall T. Schuh & Ward C. Wheeler: Phylogenetic relationships of family groups in Pentatomoidea based on morphology and DNA sequences (Insecta: Heteroptera). Cladistics 24, pp. 932-976, 2008 doi : 10.1111 / j.1096-0031.2008.00224.x
literature
- RT Schuh, JA Slater: True Bugs of the World (Hemiptera: Heteroptera). Classification and Natural History. Cornell University Press, Ithaca, New York 1995.
