Diets of Darkling Beetles (Coleoptera: Tenebrionidae) Within a Shrub-Steppe Ecosystem

Diets of Darkling Beetles (Coleoptera: Tenebrionidae) Within a Shrub-Steppe Ecosystem

Cytogenetics of the darkling beetles Zophobas aff. confusus and Nyctobates gigas (Coleoptera, Tenebrionidae).

Males of Zophobas aff. confusus and Nyctobates gigas (Tenebrionidae) collected in the State of Pernambuco, Brazil, were studied through conventional staining, C-banding, silver nitrate impregnation (AgNO₃), and the base specific fluorochromes CMA₃ and DAPI. Z. aff. confusus was found to have 2n = 20 (9+Xyp) while N. gigas exhibited 2n = 18 (8+neoXY). Large pericentromeric blocks of constitutive...

New taxa of Baltic amber false darkling beetles (Coleoptera: Melandryidae)

The extinct representatives of family are known from the Upper Cretaceous (the Turonian: Pseudocuphosis tristis Nikitsky, 2002 and Archaeserropalpus cretaceus Nikitsky, 2002; the Cognac-Santonian: Archaeoxylita zherichini Nikitsky, 1977). Melandryid beetles are also known from Eocene ambers of Europe. One species was described from Ukrainian amber (Orchesia rasnitzyni Nikitsky, 2011). At least ...

Scale-dependent Habitat Selection by the Darkling Beetle Eleodes hispilabris

-Habitat selection in the darkling beetle Eleodes hispilabris Say (Coleoptera: Tenebrionidae) on the shortgrass prairie of the central United States was nonrandom at both a broad (km2) and a fine (cm2) scale, relative to the abundance of broadly defined habitat types and, within these, microhabitats. On a broad habitat scale, darkling beetles were more numerous and had longer residence times (a...

Cryptic female choice of mates in flour beetles (Coleoptera: Tenebrionidae)

Sexual selection drives the evolution of diverse traits that provide an advantage in reproduction. In polyandrous species the traditional premating processes of male-male competition and female choice have as counterparts sperm competition and cryptic female choice (CFC) occurring during and after mating; these processes determine paternity shares of multiple males mated to the same female. I c...