The Chrysomeloidea are an enormous

superfamily SUPERFAMILY is a database and search platform of structural and functional annotation for all proteins and genomes. It classifies amino acid sequences into known structural domains, especially into SCOP superfamilies. Domains are functional, str ...

beetle 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 describ ...

s, with tens of thousands of species. The largest families are

Cerambycidae The longhorn beetles (Cerambycidae), also known as long-horned or longicorns, are a large family of beetles, with over 35,000 species described. Most species are characterized by extremely long antennae, which are often as long as or longer than ...

, long-horned beetles, with more than 35,000 species, and

Chrysomelidae The insects of the beetle family Chrysomelidae are commonly known as leaf beetles, and include over 37,000 (and probably at least 50,000) species in more than 2,500 genera, making up one of the largest and most commonly encountered of all beetle ...

, leaf beetles, with more than 13,000 species.

Overview

The Chrysomeloidea, like all other Phytophaga, typically have the fourth tarsal segment reduced and hidden by the third segment. Several species in these two families are important plant pests. The

spotted cucumber beetle ''Diabrotica undecimpunctata'', the spotted cucumber beetle or southern corn rootworm, is a species of cucumber beetle that is native to North America. The species can be a major agricultural pest insect in North America. Spotted cucumber beetl ...

is a serious pest of vegetables and is a very common insect on all sorts of flowers. The

Colorado potato beetle The Colorado potato beetle (''Leptinotarsa decemlineata''), also known as the Colorado beetle, the ten-striped spearman, the ten-lined potato beetle, or the potato bug, is a major pest of potato crops. It is about long, with a bright yellow/or ...

, ''Leptinotarsa decemlineata'', attacks

potato The potato is a starchy food, a tuber of the plant ''Solanum tuberosum'' and is a root vegetable native to the Americas. The plant is a perennial in the nightshade family Solanaceae. Wild potato species can be found from the southern Un ...

es and other members of the

Solanaceae The Solanaceae , or nightshades, are a family of flowering plants that ranges from annual and perennial herbs to vines, lianas, epiphytes, shrubs, and trees, and includes a number of agricultural crops, medicinal plants, spices, weeds, and o ...

. The

Asian long-horned beetle The Asian long-horned beetle (''Anoplophora glabripennis''), also known as the starry sky, sky beetle, or ALB, is native to eastern China, and Korea. This species has now been accidentally introduced into the United States, where it was first di ...

is a serious pest of trees where it has been introduced. . It seems almost evident that during the Jurassic and the Cretaceous the Chrysomelidae were pollen feeders and then they became external and later on internal feeders on or in leaves, buds, twigs and roots. Some authorities in the past have suggested removing the

and related families (

Disteniidae The Disteniidae are a small family of beetles in the superfamily Chrysomeloidea, traditionally treated as a group within the Cerambycidae (most resembling certain Lepturinae such as the genus '' Stenocorus'', but having long fine antennae a ...

Oxypeltidae The Oxypeltidae are a small family belonging to the superfamily Chrysomeloidea, widespread in the Andean region of Chile and Argentina. They have traditionally been considered a group within the Cerambycidae. Description The body is massive and ...

, and

Vesperidae The Vesperidae are a small family of beetles, normally classified within the family Cerambycidae, of heterogeneous aspect but all characterised by larval stages related to roots of herbaceous plants or trees Morphology Adult The nocturnal adult ...

) from Chrysomeloidea to create a separate superfamily "Cerambycoidea" (e.g.,), but in the absence of evidence to support the

monophyly In cladistics for a group of organisms, monophyly is the condition of being a clade—that is, a group of taxa composed only of a common ancestor (or more precisely an ancestral population) and all of its lineal descendants. Monophyletic gr ...

of the resulting groups, this proposal has not been widely accepted by the scientific community.

Overview

References

Bibliography

External links