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Nightjars are medium-sized nocturnal or crepuscular birds in the family Caprimulgidae and order Caprimulgiformes, characterised by long wings, short legs, and very short bills. They are sometimes called goatsuckers, due to the ancient folk tale that they sucked the milk from goats, or bugeaters, their primary source of food being insects. Some New World species are called nighthawks. The English word "nightjar" originally referred to the European nightjar.
Phalangeriformes is a paraphyletic suborder of about 70 species of small to medium-sized arboreal marsupials native to Australia, New Guinea, and Sulawesi. The species are commonly known as possums, gliders, and cuscus. The common name "possum" for various Phalangeriformes species derives from the creatures' resemblance to the opossums of the Americas. However, although opossums are also marsupials, Australasian possums are more closely related to other Australasian marsupials such as kangaroos.
Macropodidae is a family of marsupials that includes kangaroos, wallabies, tree-kangaroos, wallaroos, pademelons, quokkas, and several other groups. These genera are allied to the suborder Macropodiformes, containing other macropods, and are native to the Australian continent, New Guinea and nearby islands.
The Dasyuridae are a family of marsupials native to Australia and New Guinea, including 71 extant species divided into 17 genera. Many are small and mouse-like or shrew-like, giving some of them the name marsupial mice or marsupial shrews, but the group also includes the cat-sized quolls, as well as the Tasmanian devil and the extinct thylacine. They are found in a wide range of habitats, including grassland, underground, forests, and mountains, and some species are arboreal or semiaquatic. The Dasyuridae are often called the 'marsupial carnivores', as most members of the family are insectivores.
The former subfamily Planigalinae contained the planigales and the ningauis: very small marsupial carnivores native to Australia which are, like the quolls, antechinuses, dibblers, Tasmanian devil, and many others, part of the biological order Dasyuromorphia: the carnivorous marsupials. The subfamily is now contained in the Sminthopsinae subfamily, and the two genera are split between two different tribes; the planigales are by themselves in their own tribe, while the ningaui are lumped with the dunnarts and the Kultarr.
Potoroidae is a family of marsupials, small Australian animals known as bettongs, potoroos, and rat-kangaroos. All are rabbit-sized, brown, jumping marsupials and resemble a large rodent or a very small wallaby.
The Reduviidae is a large cosmopolitan family of the suborder Heteroptera of the order Hemiptera. Among the Hemiptera and together with the Nabidae almost all species are terrestrial ambush predators; most other predatory Hemiptera are aquatic. The main examples of nonpredatory Reduviidae are some blood-sucking ectoparasites in the subfamily Triatominae. Though spectacular exceptions are known, most members of the family are fairly easily recognizable; they have a relatively narrow neck, sturdy build, and a formidable curved proboscis. Large specimens should be handled with caution, if at all, because they sometimes defend themselves with a very painful stab from the proboscis.
Derodontidae is a family of beetles, in its own superfamily, Derodontoidea, sometimes known as the tooth-necked fungus beetles. Beetles of this family are small, between 2 and 6 mm in length, typically with spiny margins on their pronotum that give them their name, though the genus Laricobius lacks these spines. Unusual among beetles, they have two ocelli on the top of their heads.
Diselma archeri is a species of plant of the family Cupressaceae and the sole species in the genus Diselma. It is endemic to the alpine regions of Tasmania's southwest and Central Highlands, on the western coast ranges and Lake St. Clair. It is a monotypic genus restricted to high altitude rainforest and moist alpine heathland. Its distribution mirrors very closely that of other endemic Tasmanian conifers Microcachrys tetragona and Pherosphaera hookeriana.
Belostomatidae is a family of freshwater hemipteran insects known as giant water bugs or colloquially as toe-biters, Indian toe-biters, electric-light bugs, alligator ticks, or alligator fleas. They are the largest insects in the order Hemiptera. There are about 170 species found in freshwater habitats worldwide, with more than 110 in the Neotropics, more than 20 in Africa, almost as many in the Nearctic, and far fewer elsewhere. These predators are typically encountered in freshwater ponds, marshes and slow-flowing streams. Most species are at least 2 cm (0.8 in) long, although smaller species, down to 0.9 cm (0.35 in), also exist. The largest are members of the genus Lethocerus, which can exceed 12 cm (4.5 in) and nearly reach the length of some of the largest beetles in the world. Giant water bugs are a popular food in parts of Asia.
The Lygaeidae are a family in the Hemiptera, with more than 110 genera in four subfamilies. The family is commonly referred to as seed bugs, and less commonly, milkweed bugs, or ground bugs. However, while many of the species feed on seeds, some feed on sap (mucivory) or seed pods, others are omnivores and a few, such as the wekiu bug, are carnivores that feed exclusively on insects. Insects in this family are distributed across the world. The family was vastly larger, but numerous former subfamilies have been removed and given independent family status, including the Artheneidae, Blissidae, Cryptorhamphidae, Cymidae, Geocoridae, Heterogastridae, Ninidae, Oxycarenidae and Rhyparochromidae, which together constituted well over half of the former family.
Velvet water bugs are members of the family Hebridae. They are semiaquatic insects that live among moss or ponds with an abundance of vegetation, in which they prey on small arthropods. Velvet water bugs are the smallest of the Gerromorpha, and have an appearance of tiny veliids. Hebrids sometimes move across water surfaces, but walk or run rather than skate or scull on the surface.
Bettongs, species of the genus Bettongia, are potoroine marsupials once common in Australia. They are important ecosystem engineers displaced during the colonisation of the continent, and are vulnerable to threatening factors such as altered fire regimes, land clearing, pastoralism and introduced predatory species such as the fox and cat.
The Nacophorini are one of the smaller tribes of geometer moths in the subfamily Ennominae. They are the most diverse Ennominae of Australia and are widespread in the Americas. If the African genera tentatively placed herein indeed belong here, the distribution of the Nacophorini is distinctly Gondwanan, with their probable origin either of Australia, South America or even Antarctica. In Eurasia, they are rare by comparison.
Piesmatidae is a small family of true bugs, commonly called ash-grey leaf bugs. The Piesmatidae are distributed mostly in the temperate Northern Hemisphere, with some occurring in Africa, Australia and South America. A common species found throughout the Americas is Piesma cinereum.
The Polyctenidae are a rarely collected family of parasitic bugs of the superfamily Cimicoidea. Polyctenidae species or bat bugs are obligate, hematophagous ectoparasites of bats. These insects are not to be confused with cimicid bat bugs, which are members of the family Cimicidae. A significant relationship appears to occur between the family groups and the species of hosts that indicates co-evolution and specialization.
Klossiella is a genus of parasitic alveolates of the phylum Apicomplexa. Species in this genus infect the renal tract of mammals and intestinal tract of snakes.
Dinidoridae is a small family of hemipteran "true bugs" comprising about sixteen genera and a hundred species the Hemiptera suborder Heteroptera. As a group the family does not have any common name. Until the late 19th century they were generally regarded as a subfamily of Pentatomidae.
Gyaclavator is an extinct genus of lace bug in the family Tingidae known from a fossil found in North America. The genus contains a single species, Gyaclavator kohlsi.
Megarididae is a family of true bugs in the superfamily Pentatomoidea. The family consists of a single extant genus Megaris with about 16 species restricted to the Neotropical Realm and a fossil is known from Dominican amber.
References
- ↑ Lynne Forster (April 2009). "Pseudobargylia iuncea — an unusual assassin bug" (PDF). Tasmanian Field Naturalists Club Inc.
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