Beetles are insects that form the order Coleoptera, in the superorder Endopterygota. Their front pair of wings are hardened into wing-cases, elytra, distinguishing them from most other insects. The Coleoptera, with about 400,000 described species, is the largest of all orders, constituting almost 40% of described insects and 25% of all known animal life-forms; new species are discovered frequently, with estimates suggesting that there are between 0.9 and 2.1 million total species. Found in almost every habitat except the sea and the polar regions, they interact with their ecosystems in several ways: beetles often feed on plants and fungi, break down animal and plant debris, and eat other invertebrates. Some species are serious agricultural pests, such as the Colorado potato beetle, while others such as Coccinellidae eat aphids, scale insects, thrips, and other plant-sucking insects that damage crops.
Johan Christian Fabricius was a Danish zoologist, specialising in "Insecta", which at that time included all arthropods: insects, arachnids, crustaceans and others. He was a student of Carl Linnaeus, and is considered one of the most important entomologists of the 18th century, having named nearly 10,000 species of animals, and established the basis for the modern insect classification.
The rove beetles are a family (Staphylinidae) of beetles, primarily distinguished by their short elytra that typically leave more than half of their abdominal segments exposed. With roughly 63,000 species in thousands of genera, the group is currently recognized as the largest extant family of organisms. It is an ancient group, with fossilized rove beetles known from the Triassic, 200 million years ago, and possibly even earlier if the genus Leehermania proves to be a member of this family. They are an ecologically and morphologically diverse group of beetles, and commonly encountered in terrestrial ecosystems.
The Cucujidae, "flat bark beetles," are a family of distinctively flat beetles found worldwide under the bark of dead trees. The family has received considerable taxonomic attention in recent years and now consists of 70 species distributed in five genera. It was indicated Cucujus species are scavengers, only feeding on pupae and larvae of other insects and on other subcortical beetles such as their own. Since the Cucujidae prey on larvae of potentially tree damaging beetles that spread fungal diseases, they are considered to be beneficial to the health of living trees.
Dermestidae are a family of Coleoptera that are commonly referred to as skin beetles. Other common names include larder beetle, hide or leather beetles, carpet beetles, and khapra beetles. There are over 1,100 species described.
Ficus citrifolia, also known as the shortleaf fig, giant bearded fig, Jagüey, wild banyantree and Wimba tree, is a species of banyan native to southern Florida, the Caribbean, Mexico, Central America, and northern South America south to Paraguay. It is distinguished from the closely related Florida strangler fig mainly by the finer veining in the leaves.
Pselaphinae are a subfamily of beetles in the family Staphylinidae, the rove beetles. The group was originally regarded as a separate family named Pselaphidae. Newton and Thayer (1995) placed them in the Omaliine group of the family Staphylinidae based on shared morphological characters.
Staphylinoidea is a superfamily of beetles. It is a very large and diverse group with worldwide distribution.
Pederin is a vesicant toxic amide with two tetrahydropyran rings, found in the haemolymph of the beetle genus Paederus, including the Nairobi fly, belonging to the family Staphylinidae. It was first characterized by processing 25 million field-collected P. fuscipes. It makes up approximately 0.025% of an insects weight.
Nairobi fly is the common name for two species of rove beetle in the genus Paederus, native to East Africa. The beetles contain a corrosive substance known as pederin, which can cause chemical burns if it comes into contact with skin. Because of these burns, the Nairobi fly is sometimes referred to as a "dragon bug."
Paederus dermatitis, medically known as dermatitis linearis, is a skin irritation resulting from contact with the hemolymph of certain rove beetles, a group that belongs to the insect order Coleoptera and the genus Paederus. Other local names given to Paederus dermatitis include spider-lick, whiplash dermatitis, and Nairobi fly dermatitis.
Staphylininae are a subfamily of rove beetles. They contain the typical rove beetles with their long but fairly robust blunt-headed and -tipped bodies and short elytra, as well as some more unusually-shaped lineages.
Paederus is a genus of small beetles of the family Staphylinidae. With 622 valid species assigned by 1987 to the subtribe Paederina, and with all but 148 within Paederus itself, the genus is large. Due to toxins in the hemolymph of some species within this genus, it has given its name to paederus dermatitis, a characteristic skin irritation that occurs if one of the insects is crushed against skin. That name, Paederus dermatitis, is a poor choice because, decades earlier, the affliction had been called dermatitis linearis, a name that works in all languages, not just English, because of its Latin origin; the name Paederus dermatitis is also inappropriate because it has shown to be caused by (a) only a few species of the genus Paederus, but (b) also a few species that belong to closely related genera within the subtribe Paederina. A scholarly paper in 2002 suggested that a Paederus species could have been responsible for some of the ten Plagues of Egypt described in the Bible's Book of Exodus.
The Aleocharinae are one of the largest subfamilies of rove beetles, containing over 12,000 species. Previously subject to large-scale debate whether the subfamily deserved the familial status, it is now considered one of the largest subfamilies of rove beetles.
The Euaesthetinae are a subfamily of the Staphylinidae (Coleoptera). These rove beetles have slender antennae with two or three apical antennomeres forming a loose club. The tarsi have 4-4-4 or 5-5-5 segments. They are found in forest litter. Five genera and 22 species known from North America.
The Oxytelinae are a subfamily of the Staphylinidae, rove beetles. There are about 20 genera and at least 320 described species in Oxytelinae.
Piestinae are a subfamily of Staphylinidae.
Bledius is a genus of spiny-legged rove beetles in the family Staphylinidae. There are at least 100 described species in Bledius.
Pinophilini is a tribe of rove beetles in the family Staphylinidae.
Burmese amber is fossil resin dating to the early Late Cretaceous Cenomanian age recovered from deposits in the Hukawng Valley of northern Myanmar. It is known for being one of the most diverse Cretaceous age amber paleobiotas, containing rich arthropod fossils, along with uncommon vertebrate fossils and even rare marine inclusions. A mostly complete list of all taxa described up until 2018 can be found in Ross 2018; its supplement Ross 2019b covers most of 2019.
Astenus cinctus
Deroderus sp.
Lathroium sp.
Myrmecosaurus ferrugineus
Palaminus sp.
Sunius rufipes
