Meloidae

Also known as Blister Beetle, Oil Beetle, Striped Blister Beetle, Orange Blister Beetle

family of beetles

OverviewAI-generated

Meloidae is a family of insects within the order Coleoptera. It belongs to the class Insecta, phylum Arthropoda, and kingdom Animalia. The family is classified under the superfamily Tenebrionoidea. Common names for this group include Oliekevers, plasterbiller, oleicowate, and majkowate. The taxon has been described in sources such as the Nordisk familjebok, the Brockhaus and Efron Encyclopedic Dictionary, and the Gujin Tushu Jicheng.

Records for Meloidae are held by institutions including MHNCA, DBG, UTEP, UMNH, and UCSB. These records document occurrences in Mexico and the United States. The Global Biodiversity Information Facility lists 228,417 occurrences for the family, while iDigBio maintains 5,270 records accompanied by 78 media files.

Synthesized by Vinony from 24 facts across 5 sources: Wikidata, GBIF, Gbif Occ, iDigBio, Vinony graph. Generated from structured data (not the Wikipedia text) and checked against those facts — may still contain errors.

Species

Meloidae

FAMILY

KingdomAnimalia
PhylumArthropoda
ClassInsecta
OrderColeoptera
FamilyMeloidae

Observations recorded228,417

芫菁科（學名：Meloidae）為一種鞘翅目的昆蟲，又稱地膽科，英文俗名「Blister beetles」，日本俗稱「土斑貓」（日語：土斑猫）。當牠們身受威脅時，便會分泌斑蝥素（英语：Cantharidin）來禦敵，接觸後會導致水泡（Blister），這就是英文俗名的由來。全世界已知的本科生物大約有7,500種；而許多種類色彩斑斕，是為了警告掠食者牠們身懷劇毒。

via GBIF

Museum specimens

Specimen records: 5,270
With media: 78
Family: Meloidae
Collections: MHNCA, DBG, UTEP, UMNH, UCSB, UCM
Recorded in: Mexico, United States

iDigBio →

~6 min read

Encyclopedic overview

At Mumbai Blister beetles are beetles of the family Meloidae, so called for their defensive secretion of a blistering agent, cantharidin. About 2,500 species are known worldwide. Many are conspicuous and some are aposematically colored, announcing their toxicity to would-be predators.

Description

Excerpted from Wikipedia’s “Meloidae” article, available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.