Click Beetles
Lat. “Elateridae“ family
of order
“Beetles“ 1 family, 12 species
Insects in the family Elateridae are commonly called click beetles (or “typical click beetles” to distinguish them from the related families Cerophytidae, Eucnemidae, and Plastoceridae). Other names include elaters, snapping beetles, spring beetles or skipjacks. This family was defined by William Elford Leach (1790–1836) in 1815. They are a cosmopolitan beetle family characterized by the unusual click mechanism they possess. There are a few closely related families in which a few members have the same mechanism,…
Leach took the family name from the genus Elater, coined by Linnaeus in 1758. In Greek, ἐλατήρ means one who drives, pushes, or beats out. It is also the origin of the word “elastic”, from the notion of beating out a ductile substance.
Description and ecology
Some click beetles are large and colorful, but most are under two centimeters long and brown or black, without markings. The adults are typically nocturnal and phytophagous, but only some are of economic importance. On hot nights they may enter houses, but are not pests there. Click beetle larvae, called wireworms, are usually saprophagous, living on dead organisms, but some species are serious agricultural pests, and others are active predators of other insect larvae. Some elaterid species are bioluminescent in both larval and adult form, such as those of the genus Pyrophorus.
Evolution and taxonomy
The oldest known species date to the Triassic, but most are problematic due to only being known from isolated elytra. Many fossil elaterids belong to the extinct subfamily Protagrypninae.
Approximately 20 subfamilies are included in the Elateridae, considered typical of beetles in the superfamily Elateroidea; authorities have moved genera from related families (e.g. “false click beetles” to the Thylacosterninae).
References
Rines, George Edwin, ed. (1920). “Click Beetle” . Encyclopedia Americana.
External links
Media related to Elateridae at Wikimedia Commons
Data related to Click beetle at Wikispecies
Elateridae. Click Beetles of the Palearctic Region.
On the University of Florida / Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences Featured Creatures website:
Click beetles, Alaus spp.
Conoderus rudis (Brown)
Conoderus scissus Schaeffer
