Lestonia
| Lestonia | ||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Systematics | ||||||||||||
|
||||||||||||
| Scientific name of the family | ||||||||||||
| Lestoniidae | ||||||||||||
| China , 1955 | ||||||||||||
| Scientific name of the genus | ||||||||||||
| Lestonia | ||||||||||||
| China , 1955 |
Lestonia is the only genus of the family Lestoniidae within the bugs -Teilordnung Pentatomomorpha . Two types are known of it.
features
The bugs are 3.5 to 5.6 millimeters long and have a strongly convex body on the top, flattened on the underside, with a cryptic light brown pattern and resembling a turtle due to the scale-like structure. The back of the animals has a strong point-like structure. The two point eyes ( ocelli ) are small and far apart. The scutellum is greatly enlarged and reaches the tip of the abdomen.
The head, the pronotum and part of the lateral edge of the hemielytres are drawn out and bent back in the shape of a plate. Your clavus is wide, the corium has a distinct R + M vein and two membrane veins. The four-part antennae are short. The tarsi are two-part. The very fine Trichobotria are arranged obliquely and lie laterad to the spiracles . On the sixth sternite , the females each have a paired, disc-shaped organ on both sides of the midline, in front of and to the side of the genitals. These organs presumably serve for better adhesion on smooth surfaces, such as B. Scroll. The spermatheca is simple, pear-shaped and, unlike Lestonia grossi and Lestonia haustorifera, has a pump flange-like part.
The disc-shaped organs of the females, the scale-like body shape with the greatly enlarged scutellum and the plate-shaped extended edges of the hemielytres as well as the lack of the flange-like part of the spermatheca are autapomorphies of the group.
Occurrence
The family is only found in Australia.
Way of life
Little is known about the way these bedbugs live. They feed on phytophagous to callitris ( Callitris ). Both the nymphs and the adults of Lestonia haustorifera were observed on Callitris preissii , where they gathered on the young shoots and resembled a cluster of scales or small leaf beetles . The animals are generally rare.
Taxonomy and systematics
The group was first described by William Edward China in 1955 as a subfamily of the ball bugs (Plataspidae) and in 1959 he and Miller raised it to the family rank. An investigation based on morphological features and DNA sequences confirmed the monophyly of the family and revealed a sister relationship to the family of the spiny bugs (Acanthosomatidae).
The group includes the following types:
- Lestonia haustorifera China , 1955
- Lestonia grossi McDonald , 1969
supporting documents
Individual evidence
- ↑ a b c d e f g h i R.T. Schuh, JA Slater: True Bugs of the World (Hemiptera: Heteroptera). Classification and Natural History. Cornell University Press, Ithaca, New York 1995, pp. 227ff.
- ↑ a b c Family Lestoniidae. Australian Biological Resources Study. Australian Faunal Directory, accessed December 27, 2013 .
- ↑ 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
literature
- RT Schuh, JA Slater: True Bugs of the World (Hemiptera: Heteroptera). Classification and Natural History. Cornell University Press, Ithaca, New York 1995.