The family Archeocrypticidae is a small group 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 with no vernacular common name, though recent authors have coined the name ''cryptic fungus beetles''. Adults and
larva
A larva (; plural larvae ) is a distinct juvenile form many animals undergo before metamorphosis into adults. Animals with indirect development such as insects, amphibians, or cnidarians typically have a larval phase of their life cycle.
...
e seems to be
saprophagous
Saprotrophic nutrition or lysotrophic nutrition is a process of chemoheterotrophic extracellular digestion involved in the processing of decayed (dead or waste) organic matter. It occurs in saprotrophs, and is most often associated with fungi (f ...
and are often found in
plant litter
Plant litter (also leaf litter, tree litter, soil litter, litterfall or duff) is dead plant material (such as leaves, bark, needles, twigs, and cladodes) that have fallen to the ground. This detritus or dead organic material and its constitue ...
. Worldwide, about 10 genera and 50 species are found, most species are
pantropical
A pantropical ("all tropics") distribution is one which covers tropical regions of both hemispheres. Examples of species include caecilians, modern sirenians and the plant genera ''Acacia'' and '' Bacopa''.
''Neotropical'' is a zoogeographic te ...
.
''Enneboeus caseyi'' has been recorded from the American South, Central America, and Mexico.
[ About 20 species are found in Australia, in the genera '' Enneboeus,'' '' Australenneboeus'']Palearctic
The Palearctic or Palaearctic is the largest of the eight biogeographic realms of the Earth. It stretches across all of Eurasia north of the foothills of the Himalayas, and North Africa.
The realm consists of several bioregions: the Euro-Sib ...
and Nearctic
The Nearctic realm is one of the eight biogeographic realms constituting the Earth's land surface.
The Nearctic realm covers most of North America, including Greenland, Central Florida, and the highlands of Mexico. The parts of North America ...
regions.[Lawrence, John F.. "11.2. Archeocrypticidae Kaszab, 1964". ''Volume 2 Morphology and Systematics (Elateroidea, Bostrichiformia, Cucujiformia partim)'', edited by Willy Kükenthal, Richard A.B. Leschen, Rolf G. Beutel and John F. Lawrence, Berlin, New York: De Gruyter, 2011, pp. 496-501.]
References
External links
*
Tenebrionoidea
Beetle families
Pantropical fauna
{{Tenebrionoidea-stub