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Tiger beetle

Family of beetles From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Tiger beetle
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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 9 km/h (5.6 mph; 2.5 m/s), or about 125 body lengths per second.[2] 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.[3] 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.[4]

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Description

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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.[5]

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.[2]

The larvae of tiger beetles live in cylindrical burrows as much as a meter deep. The grubs have a large head, armored on top with up to six small eyes and formidable mandibles beneath. There is a prominent hump on the top of their fifth abdominal segment with two pairs of reverse pointing hooks to anchor then in their burrow with their head filling the burrow and flush with the surface.

Tiger beetle larva repairing its shaft

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.

Tiger beetle larvae attempting to catch prey

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.[6]

Six-spotted tiger beetle adults, including a pair

Tiger beetles are considered a good indicator species and have been used in ecological studies on biodiversity.[7][8] 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.[9]

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Adaptations

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Tiger beetles have an unusual form of pursuit in which they alternatively 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.[2] To avoid obstacles while running they hold their antennae rigidly and directly in front of them to mechanically sense their environment.[10] 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.[11] A few species of Cicindela are able to hunt without using their eyes and several are crepuscular.[12]

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.[13]

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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.[14] 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.[14] Previously known Mesozoic fossils of tiger beetles have been described from the Crato Formation, about 113 million years ago[14] and Oxycheilopsis cretacicus from the Santana Formation, 112 million years ago,[15] both in Brazil.

Taxonomy

Tiger beetles had been treated either as a family Cicindelidae or as the subfamily Cicindelinae[16] 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.[4] Many genera are the result of the splitting of the large genus Cicindela, and many were described by the German entomologist Walther Horn.[4][17][1]

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Genera

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Citations

General and cited references

External links

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