''Oedemera'' is a genus of beetles of the family

Oedemeridae The family Oedemeridae is a cosmopolitan group of beetles commonly known as false blister beetles, though some recent authors have coined the name pollen-feeding beetles. There are some 100 genera and 1,500 species in the family, mostly associate ...

, subfamily

Oedemerinae Oedemerinae are a subfamily of the false blister beetles (family Oedemeridae), also known as pollen-feeding beetles. The Nacerdinae are sometimes merged here. The phylogeny of this family is not robustly deduced in detail. While traditionally ...

.Vázquez, X. A. 2002. ''Fauna of European Oedemeridae''. Argania editio, Barcelona, 178 pp.

Description

Species in the genus ''Oedemera'' include slender, soft-bodied beetles of medium size, between 5 and 20 mm of length. Their colours may be bright and metallic (green, golden, copper), black and yellow and brown and black. The jaws are bifid at the apex, the last segment of maxillary palps is narrow and elongated, the antennae are long and threadlike. The elytra of most species are narrowed behind exposing part of the hind wings. The pronotum lacks lateral edges and is much narrower than elytra. The tibiae have two apical spines, in most species the hind femora of males are strongly dilated.

Biology and ecology

The species of the genus ''Oedemera'' feed on pollen and nectar and their body is covered with abundant pubescence on which pollen grains remain attached, thus contributing to pollination of the plants they frequent. The species of the subgenus ''Oncomera'' fly at dusk and at night, visiting the flowers and inflorescences of aromatic shrubs and various plants (''Clematis'', ''Crataegus'', ''Tilia'', ''Quercus'', etc.). By contrast, the species of the subgenus ''Stenaxis'' and ''Oedemera'' s. str. are diurnal, flying in full sun in the middle of the day and visiting flowers of different families such as Asteraceae, Cistaceae, Apiaceae, etc..

Distribution

This genus includes about eighty species, distributed from the

Iberian Peninsula The Iberian Peninsula (), ** * Aragonese and Occitan: ''Peninsula Iberica'' ** ** * french: Péninsule Ibérique * mwl, Península Eibérica * eu, Iberiar penintsula also known as Iberia, is a peninsula in southwestern Europe, defi ...

and North Africa to

Kamchatka The Kamchatka Peninsula (russian: полуостров Камчатка, Poluostrov Kamchatka, ) is a peninsula in the Russian Far East, with an area of about . The Pacific Ocean and the Sea of Okhotsk make up the peninsula's eastern and wes ...

Kuriles The Kuril Islands or Kurile Islands (; rus, Кури́льские острова́, r=Kuril'skiye ostrova, p=kʊˈrʲilʲskʲɪjə ɐstrɐˈva; Japanese: or ) are a volcanic archipelago currently administered as part of Sakhalin Oblast in the ...

Japan Japan ( ja, 日本, or , and formally , ''Nihonkoku'') is an island country in East Asia. It is situated in the northwest Pacific Ocean, and is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan, while extending from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north ...

and

Taiwan Taiwan, officially the Republic of China (ROC), is a country in East Asia, at the junction of the East and South China Seas in the northwestern Pacific Ocean, with the People's Republic of China (PRC) to the northwest, Japan to the nort ...

, with some species in North Eastern Region.

List of species

Subgenus ''Oedemera'' s. str. * '' O. (O.) afghana'' * '' O. (O.) algerica'' * '' O. (O.) annulata'' * '' O. (O.) atrata'' * '' O. (O.) barbara'' * '' O. (O.) basalis'' * '' O. (O.) basipes'' * '' O. (O.) brevipennis'' * '' O. (O.) crassipes'' * '' O. (O.) cretica'' * '' O. (O.) croceicollis'' * '' O. (O.) femorata'' * '' O. (O.) flavipennis'' * '' O. (O.) flavipes'' * '' O. (O.) graeca'' * '' O. (O.) hispanica'' * '' O. (O.) inapicalis'' * '' O. (O.) lateralis'' * '' O. (O.) lurida'' * '' O. (O.) melanopyga'' * '' O. (O.) monticola'' * '' O. (O.) nobilis'' * '' O. (O.) penicillata'' * '' O. (O.) podagrariae'' * '' O. (O.) pthysica'' * '' O. (O.) rostralis'' * '' O. (O.) rufofemorata'' * '' O. (O.) schrammi'' * '' O. (O.) simplex'' * '' O. (O.) subrobusta'' * '' O. (O.) testaceithorax'' * '' O. (O.) tristis'' * '' O. (O.) unicolor'' * '' O. (O.) virescens'' Subgenus '' Stenaxis'' * '' O. (S.) amurensis'' * '' O. (S.) annulata'' Subgenus '' Oncomera'' * '' O. (O.) femoralis'' * '' O. (O.) flavicans'' * '' O. (O.) marmorata'' * '' O. (O.) murinipennis'' * '' O. (O.) natolica'' * '' O. (O.) reitteri''

Gallery

File:Oedemeridae - Oedemera flavipes.JPG, ''Oedemera flavipes'' File:Oedemera atrata3.jpg, ''Oedemera atrata'' File:Oedemera nobilis02.jpg, ''Oedemera nobilis'' File:Oedemera croceicollis RF.jpg, ''Oedemera croceicollis'' File:Oedemera femorata01.jpg, ''Oedemera femorata''

References

External links

Biolib

Fauna Europaea
{{Taxonbar, from=Q146725 Oedemeridae Tenebrionoidea genera Taxa named by Guillaume-Antoine Olivier