''Altica'' (

Neo-Latin Neo-LatinSidwell, Keith ''Classical Latin-Medieval Latin-Neo Latin'' in ; others, throughout. (also known as New Latin and Modern Latin) is the style of written Latin used in original literary, scholarly, and scientific works, first in Italy d ...

from

Greek Greek may refer to: Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe: *Greeks, an ethnic group *Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family **Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor of all kno ...

, ''haltikós'', "jumper" or "jumping") is a large

genus Genus (; : genera ) is a taxonomic rank above species and below family (taxonomy), family as used in the biological classification of extant taxon, living and fossil organisms as well as Virus classification#ICTV classification, viruses. In bino ...

flea beetle The flea beetle is any small, jumping beetle of the leaf beetle family (Chrysomelidae) that is part of the tribe (biology), tribe Alticini, which is part of the subfamily Galerucinae. Historically the flea beetles were classified as their own ...

s in the subfamily

Galerucinae The Galerucinae are a large subfamily of the leaf beetles (Chrysomelidae), containing about 15,000 species in more than 1000 genera, of which about 500 genera and about 8000 species make up the flea beetle tribe Alticini. The division into tr ...

, with about 300 species, distributed nearly worldwide.Ross H. Arnett et al. ''American Beetles'', Vol. 2: ''Polyphaga: Scarabaeoidea through Curculionoidea''. Boca Raton, FL: CRC Press, 2002. . P. 662–663. The genus is best represented in the

Neotropical realm The Neotropical realm is one of the eight biogeographic realms constituting Earth's land surface. Physically, it includes the tropics, tropical Ecoregion#Terrestrial, terrestrial ecoregions of the Americas and the entire South American temperat ...

, well represented in the

Nearctic The Nearctic realm is one of the eight biogeographic realms constituting the Earth's land surface. The Nearctic realm covers most of North America, including Greenland, Central Florida, and the highlands of Mexico. The parts of North America ...

and

Palearctic The Palearctic or Palaearctic is a biogeographic realm of the Earth, the largest of eight. Confined almost entirely to the Eastern Hemisphere, it stretches across Europe and Asia, north of the foothills of the Himalayas, and North Africa. Th ...

, but occurs also in the

Afrotropic The Afrotropical realm is one of the Earth's eight biogeographic realms. It includes Sub-Saharan Africa, the southern Arabian Peninsula, the island of Madagascar, and the islands of the western Indian Ocean. It was formerly known as the Ethiopi ...

Indomalaya The Indomalayan realm is one of the eight biogeographic realms. It extends across most of South and Southeast Asia and into the southern parts of East Asia. Also called the Oriental realm by biogeographers, Indomalaya spreads all over the Ind ...

, and

Australasia Australasia is a subregion of Oceania, comprising Australia, New Zealand (overlapping with Polynesia), and sometimes including New Guinea and surrounding islands (overlapping with Melanesia). The term is used in a number of different context ...

. The species are similar to each other, small metallic blue-green-bronze beetles, often distinguished from each other only by the

aedeagus An aedeagus ( or aedeagi) is a reproductive organ of male arthropods through which they secrete sperm from the testes during copulation (zoology), copulation with a female. It can be thought of as the insect equivalent of a mammal's penis, th ...

. The species of ''Altica'', both as larvae and as adults, are

phytophagous A herbivore is an animal anatomically and physiologically evolved to feed on plants, especially upon vascular tissues such as foliage, fruits or seeds, as the main component of its diet (nutrition), diet. These more broadly also encompass an ...

, feeding on plant foliage of various food plant

taxa In biology, a taxon (back-formation from ''taxonomy''; : taxa) is a group of one or more populations of an organism or organisms seen by taxonomists to form a unit. Although neither is required, a taxon is usually known by a particular name and ...

, specific for each ''Altica'' species.

Onagraceae The Onagraceae are a family of flowering plants known as the willowherb family or evening primrose family. They include about 650 species of herbs, shrubs, and trees Rosaceae Rosaceae (), the rose family, is a family of flowering plants that includes 4,828 known species in 91 genera. The name is derived from the type genus '' Rosa''. The family includes herbs, shrubs, and trees. Most species are deciduous, but som ...

(mainly ''

Rubus ''Rubus'' is a large and diverse genus of flowering plants in the rose family, Rosaceae, subfamily Rosoideae, most commonly known as brambles. Fruits of various species are known as raspberries, blackberries, dewberries, and bristleberries. ...

'') are the dominant host plant families for

Holarctic The Holarctic realm is a biogeographic realm that comprises the majority of habitats found throughout the continents in the Northern Hemisphere. It corresponds to the floristic Boreal Kingdom. It includes both the Nearctic zoogeographical reg ...

species. The adult ''Altica'' beetles are able to jump away when approached.

Selected species

References

Further reading