Tenebrioninae
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
| Tenebrioninae | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Tenebrio molitor | |
Scientific classification  | |
| Kingdom: | Animalia |
| Phylum: | Arthropoda |
| Class: | Insecta |
| Order: | Coleoptera |
| Suborder: | Polyphaga |
| Infraorder: | Cucujiformia |
| Family: | Tenebrionidae |
| Subfamily: | Tenebrioninae Latreille, 1802 |
| Tribes | |
|
Around 20-30, see text | |
Tenebrioninae is the largest subfamily of the darkling beetles (Tenebrionidae), containing flour beetles, among others. Tenebrioninae contains more than 20 tribes.
Adults
Adults are robust, mid-sized beetles that typically have elytra with some sort of corrugation on the upper side. They are typically black, dark brown or grey, and often have a satiny sheen. The body is shaped like a medication capsule or like a bullet; the legs can be short and stout or long and spindly. They eat both fresh and decaying vegetation, including vegetable produce, and several are commercially important pests of flour and other cereal products.
The subfamily has been characterized[1] as adults having mandibles with the back opposite the cutting edge, without margination and excavated opposite the molar pait; having ocelli arranged in two transverse, crescent shaped or circular groups on each side of head, and with five more or less fused lenses; having antennae with basal articles noticeably longer than wide; having pygidium that is apically bicomute; and having abdominal spiracles that are oval and transverse, among other characteristics.
Larvae
Larvae of the tenebrioninae subfamily take after most other tenebrionid larvae:[2] usually cylindrical to slightly flattened, occasionally short and broad, or strongly flattened. The head and all visible tergites or only the head and abdominal apex are heavily sclerotized.
Diagnostic characters for larvae include the presence of a frontoclypeal suture, flat and dome-like antennal sensorium, simple malar apex which is not cleft, simple ninth sternum, annular or annular- multiforous spiracles, and the absence of an endocarina, mandibular prostheca, hypostomal rods, ventral prolegs, and patches or rows of tergal asperites.
