Tiger beetle

From Vero - Wikipedia
Jump to navigation Jump to search

Template:Short description Template:Automatic taxobox

Tiger beetles or the Cicindelidae are a family of beetles known for their aggressive predatory habits and running speed. The fastest known species of tiger beetle, Rivacindela hudsoni, can run at a speed of Template:Convert, or about 125 body lengths per second.<ref name="cornell">Template:Cite news</ref> As of 2005, about 2,600 species and subspecies were known, with the richest diversity in the Oriental (Indo-Malayan) region, followed by the Neotropics.<ref>Pearson & Cassola 2005</ref> While historically treated as a subfamily of ground beetles (Carabidae) under the name Cicindelinae, several studies since 2020 indicated that they should be treated as a family, the Cicindelidae, a sister group to Carabidae, within the Adephaga.<ref name=":0">Template:Cite journal</ref>

Description

Well-known genera include Cicindela, Tetracha, Omus, Amblycheila and Manticora. Cicindela has a cosmopolitan distribution.

Many tiger beetles have large bulging eyes, long slender legs and large curved mandibles. Both Cicindela and Tetracha are often brightly colored, while the other genera mentioned are usually uniform black in color. Tiger beetles in the genus Manticora, which live primarily in the dry regions of southern Africa, are the largest in size.<ref>Template:Cite book</ref>

While members of the genus Cicindela are usually diurnal and may be out on the hottest days, Tetracha, Omus, Amblycheila and Manticora are all nocturnal. All tiger beetles are predatory, both as adults and as larvae. They prey on nearly anything they can catch, including other beetles, hoppers, ants and caterpillars.<ref name="cornell"/>

The larvae of tiger beetles live in cylindrical burrows as much as a meter deep. The grubs have a large head with a pair of formidable mandibles. They have six simple eyes (stemmata) on each side of the head. Two pairs are much larger than the others, and seem to be used for range estimation. The largest have about 5000 retinal cells.<ref>Morphological and optical properties of the corneal lens and retinal structure in the posterior large stemma of the tiger beetle larva</ref> There is a prominent hump on the top of their fifth abdominal segment with two pairs of reverse pointing hooks to anchor them in their burrow with their head filling the entrance and flush with the surface.

File:Tiger Beetle Repair Shaft.webm

The larvae wait for prey to come too close, attempt to grab and pull them down their shaft. The hump and hooks prevent struggling prey from pulling them out of their shaft.

File:Tiger Beetle Catch Attempts.webm

The fast-moving adults run down their prey and are extremely fast on the wing, their reaction times being of the same order as that of common houseflies. Some tiger beetles in the tropics are arboreal, but most run on the surface of the ground. They live along sea and lake shores, on sand dunes, around playa lakebeds and on clay banks or woodland paths, being particularly fond of sandy surfaces.<ref>Werner 2000</ref>

File:Tiger Beetle Adults.webm

Tiger beetles are considered a good indicator species and have been used in ecological studies on biodiversity.<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref><ref>Template:Cite journal</ref> Several species of wingless parasitic wasps in the genus Methocha (family Thynnidae) lay their eggs on larvae of various Cicindela species, such as Cicindela dorsalis.<ref>Burdick, D.J. and Wasbauer, M.S. (1959). "Biology of Methocha californica Westwood (Hymenoptera: Tiphiidae)." Wasmann Jour. Biol. 17:75-88. Department of Environmental Conservation</ref>

Adaptations

Tiger beetles have an unusual form of pursuit in which they alternately sprint toward their prey, then stop and visually reorient. This may be because the beetle runs too fast for its visual system to accurately process images.<ref name="cornell"/> To avoid obstacles while running they hold their antennae rigidly and directly in front of them to mechanically sense their environment.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> Many tiger beetles hunt in flat sandy areas, and their eyes have flat-world adaptations, such as high-acuity perception streaks corresponding to the horizon. A tiger beetle uses the elevation of its potential prey in its visual field to determine how far away it is. As visual hunters, tiger beetles tend to hunt in open, relatively flat habitats, such as sand bars, woodland paths, and barren ground scrubland. In this sense, beetles might be expected to use elevation as a distance cue in their visual pursuit of prey.<ref>Layne, J. E., Chen, P. W., & Gilbert, C. (2006). "The role of target elevation in prey selection by tiger beetles (Carabidae: Cicindela spp.)". Journal of Experimental Biology, 209 (Pt 21), 4295–4303.</ref> A few species of Cicindela are able to hunt without using their eyes and several are crepuscular.<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref>

Several species are known to be sensitive to ultrasound and produce ultrasound in response to bats, and are thought to be Batesian mimics, imitating the sounds of toxic moths that are avoided by bats.<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref>

Fossil record

The oldest fossil tiger beetle yet found, Cretotetracha grandis, comes from the Yixian Formation in Inner Mongolia, China, and dates to the early Cretaceous Period, 125 million years ago. Most fossils found are grey or yellow silty mudstone.<ref name="Zhao2019">Template:Cite journal</ref> Traits that identify Cretotetracha as Cicindelinae include long mandibles shaped like sickles, simple teeth arranged along the mandible's inner surface, antennae that attach to the head between the base of the mandibles and the eye. The left mandible is approximately 3.3 mm and the right mandible is approximately 4.2 mm long. A long body form roughly around 8.1 mm where the combined eyes and head are wider than the thorax, and long running legs.<ref name="Zhao2019"/> Previously known Mesozoic fossils of tiger beetles have been described from the Crato Formation, about 113 million years ago<ref name="Zhao2019"/> and Oxycheilopsis cretacicus from the Santana Formation, 112 million years ago,<ref name="Gough2018">Template:Cite journal</ref> both in Brazil.

Taxonomy

Tiger beetles had been treated either as a family Cicindelidae or as the subfamily Cicindelinae<ref>Template:Cite journal</ref> of the Carabidae (ground beetles) but since 2020, there has been growing evidence for the treatment as a separate family, that is sister to the Carabidae.<ref name=":0"/> Many genera are the result of the splitting of the large genus Cicindela, and many were described by the German entomologist Walther Horn.<ref name=":0"/><ref>Template:Cite journal</ref><ref name=tribes>Template:Cite journal</ref>

Genera

Template:Div col

Citations

Template:Reflist

General and cited references

  • Acorn, John (2001). Tiger Beetles of Alberta: Killers on the Clay, Stalkers on the Sand. University of Alberta Press.
  • Pearson, David L.; Cassola, F. (June 2005). "A Quantitative Analysis of Species Descriptions of Tiger Beetles (Coleoptera Cicindelidae), from 1758 to 2004, and Notes about Related Developments in Biodiversity Studies". The Coleopterists Bulletin. 59 (2).
  • Pearson, David L.; Knisley, C. Barry; Kazilek, Charles J. (2005). A Field Guide to the Tiger Beetles of the United States and Canada. Oxford University Press.
  • Pearson, David L.; Vogler, Alfried P. (2001). Tiger Beetles: The Evolution, Ecology, and Diversity of the Cicindelids. Cornell University Press.
  • Schüle, Peter (2010). "Further new country records of African Tiger Beetles with some taxonomical note (Coleoptera, Cicindelidae)". Entomologia Africana 15 (2).
  • Werner, Karl (1991, 1992, 1993 & 1995). The Beetles of the World, volume 13 Template:Webarchive, volume 15 Template:Webarchive, volume 18 Template:Webarchive, and 20 volume 20, Sciences Nat, Venette.
  • Werner, Karl (2000). The Tiger Beetles of Africa. Taita Publishers.

Template:Commons Template:Wikispecies

Template:Taxonbar Template:Authority control

Retrieved from "https://wiki.sarg.dev/index.php?title=Tiger_beetle&oldid=165725"