Machaerotidae

Taxobox


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regnum = Animalia
phylum = Arthropoda
classis = Insecta
ordo = Hemiptera
familia = Cercopoidea

The Machaerotidae (Hemiptera: Cercopoidea) comprise a small, distinct and interesting group of insects mainly inhabiting the Old World tropics. The adult often has a long, free and spine-like process originating at the scutellum and is thus superficially similar to the Membracidae. Its tegmen or forewing, like typical bugs of the Suborder Heteroptera, always has a distinct, membranous apical area. The nymph constructs a calcareous tube on some woody dicotyledons and immerses itself in a rather clear fluid excretion inside the tube. The tube strongly simulates the shell of certain serpulid sea worms or helicoid land snails and contain no less than 75% calcium carbonate. This fascinating habit is quite uncommon in the Class Insecta and markedly different from that of typical cercopoids or spittlebugs which make and live in a forth mass either subterranean or above-ground. [Maa, T.C. (1963) A Review of the Machaerotidae (Hemiptera: Cercopoidea). Pacific Insects Monograph, 5, 1–166.]

References