Carayonemidae is a family of

scale insect Scale insects are small insects of the Order (biology), order Hemiptera, suborder Sternorrhyncha. Of dramatically variable appearance and extreme sexual dimorphism, they comprise the infraorder Coccomorpha which is considered a more convenient g ...

s commonly known as carayonemids. They typically live among

moss Mosses are small, non-vascular plant, non-vascular flowerless plants in the taxonomic phylum, division Bryophyta (, ) ''sensu stricto''. Bryophyta (''sensu lato'', Wilhelm Philippe Schimper, Schimp. 1879) may also refer to the parent group bryo ...

es and

leaf litter Plant litter (also leaf litter, tree litter, soil litter, litterfall, or duff) is dead plant material (such as leaves, bark, needles, twigs, and cladodes) that has fallen to the ground. This detritus or dead organic material and its constituen ...

which is unusual for scale insects. Members of this family come from

Neotropical The Neotropical realm is one of the eight biogeographic realms constituting Earth's land surface. Physically, it includes the tropical terrestrial ecoregions of the Americas and the entire South American temperate zone. Definition In biogeogra ...

areas of

South South is one of the cardinal directions or compass points. The direction is the opposite of north and is perpendicular to both west and east. Etymology The word ''south'' comes from Old English ''sūþ'', from earlier Proto-Germanic ''*sunþa ...

and

Central America Central America is a subregion of North America. Its political boundaries are defined as bordering Mexico to the north, Colombia to the southeast, the Caribbean to the east, and the Pacific Ocean to the southwest. Central America is usually ...

.UDSA Agricultural Research Service
/ref> However, per Scalenet,''Carayonema'' Richard, 1986 (Ortheziidae)
/ref> using morphology, Powell et al. (2024) demonstrates that the four species previously placed in the family Carayonemidae form a monophyletic group within the Ortheziidae, as the subfamily Carayoneminae.

Life cycle

Very little is known about this family, but in one species, the female scale has four

instar An instar (, from the Latin '' īnstar'' 'form, likeness') is a developmental stage of arthropods, such as insects, which occurs between each moult (''ecdysis'') until sexual maturity is reached. Arthropods must shed the exoskeleton in order to ...

Genera

There are four genera, each with a single known species: * '' Baloghicoccus costaricaensis'' * '' Carayonema orousseti'' * '' Foldicoccus monikae'' * '' Mahunkacoccus mexicoensis'' ''Foldicoccus monikae'' is flattened and leaf-shaped and the adult has six legs and a pair of antennae.

References

Scale insects Hemiptera families Neococcoids {{Coccoidea-stub