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Ptiliidae
Ptiliidae is a family of very tiny beetles (including the smallest of all beetles) with a cosmopolitan distribution. They are colloquially called featherwing beetles, because the hindwings are narrow and feathery. There are approximately 600 described species in 80 genera, but large numbers of specimens in collections await description and the true number of species is likely to be much higher than this. The family is divided into 3 subfamilies: * Acrotrichinae * Cephaloplectinae * Ptiliinae Description This family contains the smallest of all beetles, with a length when fully grown of . The weight is approximately 0.4 milligrams. Ptillid wings are feathery due to the much higher effective viscosity of air at small body sizes, which makes normal insect wings much less efficient. Unlike other small insects with feathery wings, such as parasitic wasps like fairyflies, ptillids do not fly using a clap and fling motion, but instead fly using a figure of eight pattern wher ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Pteryx
''Pteryx'' is a genus of beetles that is typically found in northern bogs in the Northern Hemisphere. They belong to the family Ptiliidae which is referred to as feather-winged beetles as the insect wing, hindwings are narrow and feather-like. Like most of the rest of the family, ''Pteryx'' are very small and live in rotting vegetative matter. They prefer rotting wood and are generally found under the bark of rotting logs or stumps. Description The ''Pteryx'' are less than 1 mm in length. They are Polymorphism (biology), polymorphic, in that they frequently occur in two forms, a normal variety, and a neonate form that has only vestigial wings, pale body pigmentation, and no pigmentation in their smaller eyes.Dybas, Henry S. (1978) "The Systematics, and Geographical and Ecological Distribution of Ptiliopycna, a Nearctic Genus of Parthenogenetic Featherwing Beetles (Coleoptera: Ptiliidae)" ''The American Midland Naturalist'' 99(1): pp. 83-100, page 96 Distribution ''Pteryx ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
