Anthribidae Billberg, 1820

Janicki, Julia & Young, Daniel K., 2017, Nemonychidae and Anthribidae of Wisconsin (Coleoptera: Curculionoidea), Insecta Mundi 2017 (579), pp. 1-36 : 5

Family Anthribidae Billberg

Anthribidae consists of 3,860 species in 371 genera across the world’s temperate and tropical regions ( Valentine 1998), with a richer fauna in the subtropics and tropics.

Valentine (1960) revised the family for North America north of Mexico, including 87 species in 23 genera. In 1998, he updated that statistic and reported the Nearctic fauna consists of 88 species in 30 genera within 17 tribes. He also noted ( Valentine 1998) that an additional 32 species of Ormiscus Waterhouse remained undescribed, as well as a few species in other genera represented by inadequate material. In Canada, 20 species in 10 genera have been recorded ( Bright 1993; Bousquet et al. 2013), while in Wisconsin, published records of six species in six genera existed prior to this study ( Downie and Arnett 1996). For the Wisconsin records, only one of the six species had records at the county level. At the conclusion of this study, there were 21 species in 13 genera recorded from Wisconsin.

Monophyly of Anthribidae is supported by the possession of more than five setae on the frons (larva); an adult autapomorphy is the notosternal suture represented by a weak transverse line extended vertically to the notum ( Marvaldi and Morrone 2000).

Most anthribids are wood-borers and many of them are often found on wood decaying ascomycete fungi. In many cases, adults obtain their nutrients either by directly feeding on fungi or indirectly feeding on the decaying matter around the fungi; in other cases, adults feed on seeds, pollen, bark or even scale insects. In general, adults can be found associated with larval foods.

Adults are most frequently collected by beating dead or dying branches, clumps of dead twigs, or branches of hardwood trees. They can also be collected by sweeping weedy fields or overgrown areas, by examining trees with pyrenomycete fungi ( Valentine 2002), and occasionally with passive traps such as Malaise traps, flight-intercept traps or light traps.

Family diagnosis. Anthribidae is distinguished from other families of Curculionoidea by the broad, flat rostrum (though in some species it can be relatively thick), absence of gular sutures, 4-segmented, movable maxillary palpi, free labrum, ventrally spongy pubescent 3 rd tarsomere, and by the exposed pygidium.