''Coridius ianus'', sometimes known as the red pumpkin bug, is a species of bug in the family

Dinidoridae Dinidoridae is a small family of Hemiptera, hemipteran "true bugs" comprising about sixteen Genus, genera and a hundred species the Hemiptera Order (biology), suborder Heteroptera.Lis, Jerzy A; Lis; Pawel; Ziaja, Dariusz J; Kocorek, Anna. Systema ...

. It feeds by sucking on the sap on soft parts of plants, especially in the cucurbit family, and causes damage to crops.

Taxonomy

This species was originally described in the genus ''Cimex'' by

Fabricius Fabricius (, ) is a surname. Notable people with the surname include: *people from the Ancient Roman Fabricia gens, gens Fabricia: **Gaius Fabricius Luscinus, the first of the Fabricii to move to Rome * Johann Goldsmid (1587–1616), known by his ...

, who later transferred the genus to ''Edessa'' in 1803. It was later placed in the genus ''Pentatoma'' by Lepeletier and Serville in 1825 and then the genus ''Aspongopus''by Laporte in 1833. The species was finally transferred to ''Coridius'' by Schumacher in 1924. Subsequent authors, beginning with Fuessly in 1778, subsequently spelled the epithet as "''janus''." Such subsequent spellings that differ from the original publication, however, are unavailable names under ICZN Article 33.3. Thus, ''ianus'' is retained as the accepted spelling.

Description and identification

The antenna is five segmented with the third segment longer than the first which is shorter than all other segments, the body outline is oval. The scutellum is short and has a rounded apex. The proboscis tip extends past the coxae of the first pair of legs. They are yellowish to orange red in colour with a black stripe on the anterior pronotal edge sometimes broke in the middle. The basal half of the scutellum and the membrane of the forewing is also black.

Distribution

The species is widely distributed in tropical South and Southeast Asia but has spread to other parts of the world.

Biochemistry

''Coridius ianus'' has been used in numerous physiological and anatomic studies that have demonstrated their strong cibarial muscles used for sucking sap. Like other bugs they produce defensive chemicals from metathoracic scent glands opening ventrally at the base of the third coxae. They produce chemicals that include , , , , , and . These chemicals are known to repel ants (''Anoplolepis longipes'') and beetles and the effectiveness of a mixture of the key compounds trans-2-hexenal; n-tridecane (60:40 by weight) was greater than with comparative alkanes of shorter or longer lengths.

References

{{Taxonbar, from=Q39046216 Insects of Southeast Asia Dinidoridae Insects described in 1775