Sphindidae is a family of

beetle Beetles are insects that form the order Coleoptera (), in the superorder Endopterygota. Their front pair of wings are hardened into wing-cases, elytra, distinguishing them from most other insects. The Coleoptera, with about 400,000 describ ...

s, in the suborder

Polyphaga Polyphaga is the largest and most diverse suborder of beetles. It comprises 144 families in 16 superfamilies, and displays an enormous variety of specialization and adaptation, with over 350,000 described species, or approximately 90% of the b ...

. They are also known as slime mold beetles due to their exclusive feeding on

slime molds Slime mold or slime mould is an informal name given to several kinds of unrelated eukaryotic organisms with a life cycle that includes a free-living single-celled stage and the formation of spores. Spores are often produced in macroscopic mu ...

during adult and larval stages, other aspects of their life history are obscure. Palaeontological discoveries since 2015 have added to the geologic history of Sphindidae, including the discovery of '' Libanopsis'', placed in the extinct subfamily Libanopsinae.

Genera

Eight living genera are placed in Sphindidae: * '' Aspidiphorus'' Latreille, 1829 * '' Carinisphindus'' McHugh, 1900 * '' Eurysphindus'' LeConte, 1878 * '' Genisphindus'' McHugh, 1993 * '' Odontosphindus'' LeConte, 1878 * '' Protosphindus'' Sen Gupta and Crowson, 1979 * '' Sphindiphorus'' Sen Gupta and Crowson, 1979 * '' Sphindus'' Megerle in Dejean, 1821 (cryptic slime mold beetles) *'' Trematosphindus'' Li & Cai, 2021,

Burmese amber Burmese amber, also known as Burmite or Kachin amber, is amber from the Hukawng Valley in northern Myanmar. The amber is dated to around 100 million years ago, during the latest Albian to earliest Cenomanian ages of the mid-Cretaceous period. The ...

, Myanmar, Late Cretaceous (

Cenomanian The Cenomanian is, in the ICS' geological timescale, the oldest or earliest age of the Late Cretaceous Epoch or the lowest stage of the Upper Cretaceous Series. An age is a unit of geochronology; it is a unit of time; the stage is a unit in the s ...

) *'' Burmops'' Kirejtshuk et al. 2019 Burmese amber, Myanmar, Late Cretaceous (Cenomanian) Additionally the extinct subfamily Libanopsinae contains the genus '' Libanopsis'' encompassing five species from

Cretaceous The Cretaceous ( ) is a geological period that lasted from about 145 to 66 million years ago (Mya). It is the third and final period of the Mesozoic Era, as well as the longest. At around 79 million years, it is the longest geological period of th ...

Lebanese amber Lebanese amber is fossilized resin found in Lebanon and southwest Syria. It dates back approximately 130-125 million years to the Barremian of the Early Cretaceous. It formed on what was then the northern coast of Gondwana, believed to be a tropica ...

References

External links

Sphindidae
Tree of Life * Cucujoidea families {{Cucujoidea-stub