Megarididae is a family of true bugs in the superfamily

Pentatomoidea The Pentatomoidea are a superfamily of insects in the Heteroptera suborder of the Hemiptera order. As Hemiptera, they share a common arrangement of sucking mouthparts. The roughly 7000 species under Pentatomoidea are divided into 21 families (16 ...

. The family consists of a single extant genus ''Megaris'' with about 16 species restricted to the

Neotropical Realm The Neotropical realm is one of the eight biogeographic realms constituting Earth's land surface. Physically, it includes the tropical terrestrial ecoregions of the Americas and the entire South American temperate zone. Definition In bioge ...

and a fossil is known from

Dominican amber Dominican amber is amber from the Dominican Republic derived from resin of the extinct tree ''Hymenaea protera''. Dominican amber differentiates itself from Baltic amber by being nearly always transparent, and it has a higher number of fossil incl ...

. Bugs in the family are small (< 5 mm long) and are beetle-like, convex and shiny. The family can be identified by an enlarged scutellum that covers the abdomen and wings entirely and the legs have two tarsal segments. The extant genus ''

Megaris :''This is also the ancient Greek name of a small island off Naples, site of the Castel dell'Ovo.'' Megaris ( grc, Μεγαρίς) was a small but populous state of ancient Greece, west of Attica and north of Corinthia, whose inhabitants were adv ...

'' has the second tarsal segment much smaller than the first. The

ocelli A simple eye (sometimes called a pigment pit) refers to a form of eye or an optical arrangement composed of a single lens and without an elaborate retina such as occurs in most vertebrates. In this sense "simple eye" is distinct from a multi-l ...

are ovoid-elliptical and the eyes are constricted. The antennae are four-segmented. They are smaller than the somewhat similar members of the Canopidae which have however slightly larger, have three tarsal segments, and have the lateral pronotal margins meeting in a rounded arc. A fossil species from 20 to 15 mya amber has been described as ''Minysporops dominicanus''.

References

{{taxonbar, from=Q3853941 Heteroptera families Neotropical realm biota Shield bugs