Coleoptera Histeroidea Sphaeritidae, Synteliidae and Histeridae Fauna Sinica Insecta 75 [中国动物志 昆虫纲 第七十五卷 鞘翅目 阎甲总科 扁圆甲科 长阎甲科 阎甲科]

Description:

Text Chinese with English summary. Fauna Sinica Insecta Vol.75 Coleoptera Histeroidea Sphaeritidae, Synteliidae and Histeridae studies the taxonomy of the superfamily Histeroidea of China. Histeroidea is a very important superfamily of the Polyphaga beetles in the order Coleoptera and represents a special clade of Staphyliniformia. Histeroidea includes now three families, namely, Sphaeritidae, Synteliidae and Histeridae; last one is very speciose of 4400 species worldwide. Most histerid beetles are predatory, saproxylic or xylophagy, living on some fungi or decaying materials of plants and (or) animals; part are also as myrmecophilus, living together with ants. Many studies focused on evolution and phylogeny of Histeridae; some entomologists want to find out how to use histerid beetles and natural enemies in pest control; ecologists tried to use these beetle species as bio-indicators in dead wood decaying and forest management.

This book, as one of the series published under the name "Fauna Sinica", is a comprehensive study of taxonomy and systematic of Chinese Histeroidea and includes the results of our long-termed studies on this beetle group. Based on the taxonomic revision, we included in this work all the known species of the superfamily Histeroidea recorded in China up to 2017. The exact fauna data are 3 families (Sphaeritidae, Synteliidae and Histeridae) 67 genera 303 species. The Histeridae is a very large taxon comparing to the other two families and is composed of 10 specieose subfamilies. This family takes the major part of Chinese histeroid fauna. This work includes keys to species or other higher taxa, descriptions of all families, subfamilies, genera and almost all species found in China. All species and higher taxa are revised with a complete citations; messages of specimens observed are also included; species geographical distributions are also up-dated. Morphological characters are displayed in 228 figures and ca.2000 line drawings. In a very brief review text, this work includes also the following contents: a perspective to the taxonomic studies, the morphology of adults, eggs, larvae and pupae; systematic and its changes in the taxonomy of histerid history; geographical distributions in the different regions of China; other messages of the biological and ecological features, etc. Of course this work includes also the new species and revisions published by my team members.