Weevils are beetles belonging to the superfamily Curculionoidea, known for their elongated snouts. They are usually small – less than 6 mm in length – and herbivorous. Approximately 97,000 species of weevils are known. They belong to several families, with most of them in the family Curculionidae. It also includes bark beetles, which while morphologically dissimilar to other weevils in lacking the distinctive snout, is a subfamily of Curculionidae. Some other beetles, although not closely related, bear the name "weevil", such as the leaf beetle subfamily Bruchinae, known as "bean weevils", or the biscuit weevil, which belongs to the family Ptinidae.
A water beetle is a generalized name for any beetle that is adapted to living in water at any point in its life cycle. Most water beetles can only live in fresh water, with a few marine species that live in the intertidal zone or littoral zone. There are approximately 2000 species of true water beetles native to lands throughout the world.
Polyphaga is the largest and most diverse suborder of beetles. It comprises 144 families in 16 superfamilies, and displays an enormous variety of specialization and adaptation, with over 350,000 described species, or approximately 90% of the beetle species discovered thus far.
The Elateroidea are a large superfamily of beetles. It contains the familiar click beetles, fireflies, and soldier beetles and their relatives. It consists of about 25,000 species.
The Lymexylidae, also known as ship-timber beetles, are a family of wood-boring beetles. Lymexylidae belong to the suborder Polyphaga and are the sole member of the superfamily Lymexyloidea.
The Rhagophthalmidae are a family of beetles within the superfamily Elateroidea. Members of this beetle family have bioluminescent organs on the larvae, and sometimes adults, and are closely related to the Phengodidae, though historically they have been often treated as a subfamily of Lampyridae, or as related to that family. Some recent evidence suggested that they were the sister group to the Phengodidae, and somewhat distantly related to Lampyridae, whose sister taxon was Cantharidae, but more reliable genome-based phylogenetics placed as the sister group to the Lampyridae.
Scirtoidea is a superfamily of beetles. It is traditionally considered to consist of four families: Clambidae, Decliniidae, Eucinetidae and Scirtidae. However, genetic studies have suggested that Clambidae and Eucinetidae belong to a separate superfamily Clamboidea, which also includes Derodontidae. Scirtoidea and Clamboidea are the two earliest diverging lineages of living polyphagans.
The Lycidae are a family in the beetle order Coleoptera, members of which are commonly called net-winged beetles. These beetles are cosmopolitan, being found in Nearctic, Palearctic, Neotropical, Afrotropical, Oriental, and Australian ecoregions.
Nosodendridae is a family of beetles, with less than a hundred species in three extant genera, which are found worldwide. Nosodendron, the largest genus, is found in forests and attracted to yeast generated slime on the wounds of trees, and likely consumes fermented substances as well as fungi and microorganisms. Several additional genera and species are known from the fossil record. Nosodendridae is considered to be an isolated lineage within Polyphaga, being the sister group to the clade containing Staphyliniformia, Bostrichoidea and Cucujiformia.
Phloeostichidae is a family of beetles in the superfamily Cucujoidea. They are typically found under the bark of dead trees. Larvae have been found to consume plant tissue and some fungi, while the adults appear to be exclusively fungivores. The family contains four extant genera, Phloeostichus is native to the Palearctic, Rhopalobrachium is native to central-southern South America and eastern Australia, Hymaea is native to southeastern Australia, and Bunyastichus is found in Tasmania.
Rhinorhipus is a genus of beetles that contains a single species, Rhinorhipus tamborinensis from southern Queensland, Australia. It is the sole member of the family Rhinorhipidae and superfamily Rhinorhipoidea. It is an isolated lineage not closely related to any other living beetle, estimated to have split from other beetles at least 200 million years ago, with studies either considering them the earliest diverging member of Elateriformia, or a basal lineage within Polyphaga. They exhibit feigning death (thanatosis) when disturbed. Their ecology is poorly known. It is likely that they are fossorial based on their morphology.
Drilini is a tribe of beetles known commonly as the false firefly beetles, in the family Elateridae.
Dryopidae is a family of beetles, commonly named long-toed water beetles, in the superfamily Byrrhoidea. It was described by Gustaf Johan Billberg in 1820.
Elmidae, commonly known as riffle beetles, is a family of beetles in the superfamily Byrrhoidea described by John Curtis in 1830. Both adults and larvae are usually aquatic, living under rocks in fast-flowing shallow areas of streams, such as riffles, feeding on algae and biofilms. There are more than 150 genera and 1,500 described species in Elmidae. The oldest record of the group is Cretohypsilara from the Cenomanian aged Burmese amber.
Harley Procter Brown Jr. was an American biologist and an expert in certain types of aquatic beetles. He described over forty new species in his career.
Omethidae is a family of Elateroidea sometimes known as the false soldier beetles. They are native to South, Southeast and Eastern Asia and the Americas. Their biology is obscure and their larvae are unknown. They appear to inhabit vegetation in or surrounding forests, and are probably active during the day.
Ptilodactylidae is a family of beetles belonging to the Elateriformia. There around 500 extant species in 35 genera. They are generally associated with riparian and aquatic habitats. The larvae generally live associated with rotting wood or vegetation, or within gravel and detritus on the edge of water bodies. The larvae of some species feed on submerged rotting wood or on plant roots, while the adults of some species are known to feed on fungus with modified brush-like maxillae.
The Cantharoid beetles are a group of beetles formerly placed in the now deprecated superfamily Cantharoidea. The family was found to be non-monophyletic taxonomic and most former members are now placed within the accepted superfamily Elateroidea. Some former families, Drilidae and Omalisidae, are now placed within Elateridae. One former family, Cneoglossidae, is now in the superfamily Byrrhoidea.
Gymnochthebius seminole is a species of tiny beetle in the family Hydraenidae. It is known only from a single adult male specimen collected in a "sawgrass-mangrove area" along the Snake Bight Trail north of Flamingo in Everglades National Park, Florida on 27 August 1965.
