The Chrysomeloidea are an enormous superfamily of

beetle Beetles are insects that form the Taxonomic rank, order Coleoptera (), in the superorder Holometabola. Their front pair of wings are hardened into wing-cases, elytra, distinguishing them from most other insects. The Coleoptera, with about 40 ...

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

Cerambycidae The longhorn beetles (Cerambycidae), also known as long-horned or longicorns (whose larvae are often referred to as roundheaded borers), are a large family of beetles, with over 35,000 species described. Most species are characterized by anten ...

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

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

, 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 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, and the potato bug) is a beetle known for being a major pest of potato crops. It is about lo ...

, ''Leptinotarsa decemlineata'', attacks

potato The potato () is a starchy tuberous vegetable native to the Americas that is consumed as a staple food in many parts of the world. Potatoes are underground stem tubers of the plant ''Solanum tuberosum'', a perennial in the nightshade famil ...

es and other members of the

Solanaceae Solanaceae (), commonly known as the nightshades, is a family of flowering plants in the order Solanales. It contains approximately 2,700 species, several of which are used as agricultural crops, medicinal plants, and ornamental plants. Many me ...

. The Asian long-horned beetle 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, Oxypeltidae, and Vesperidae) from Chrysomeloidea to create a separate superfamily "Cerambycoidea" (e.g.,), but in the absence of evidence to support the

monophyly In biological cladistics for the classification of organisms, monophyly is the condition of a taxonomic grouping being a clade – that is, a grouping of organisms which meets these criteria: # the grouping contains its own most recent comm ...

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

Overview

References

Bibliography

External links