Superfamily COREOIDEA

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Superfamily COREOIDEA

Compiler and date details

June 2012 - Professor Gerry Cassis, Anna Namyatova, Nikolai Tatarnic and Celia Symonds, University of New South Wales, Sydney

15 February 2002

Introduction

The Coreoidea is a superfamily of pentatomomorphan bugs comprising five families: Alydidae, Coreidae, Hyocephalidae, Rhopalidae and Stenocephalidae. The superfamily is represented in all major zoogeographic regions. The Alydidae, Coreidae and Rhopalidae are also cosmopolitan in distribution. The Hyocephalidae are an Australian endemic family and the Stenocephalidae are restricted to the Eastern Hemisphere. All of the coreoid families are present in Australia.

Reuter (1910) first established the Coreoidea as a superfamily of the Heteroptera. Tullgren (1918) included the coreoids in his 'Trichophora' (Heteroptera with patterned lateral abdominal trichobothria). Leston et al. (1954) placed the Coreoidea within the Pentatomomorpha but without indicating the included families.

The composition of the Coreoidea was in dispute in the 1960s. Schaefer (1964, 1981) proposed a restricted grouping of families (Alydidae, Coreidae, Rhopalidae and Stenocephalidae) and later included the Hyocephalidae in this arrangement. Štys (1967; also Štys & Kerzhner 1975) regarded the Coreoidea more broadly to include the aforementioned families, as well as families of the Lygaeoidea and Pyrrhocoroidea sensu Schaefer. He recognised a number of informal groups, including the 'malcid line' (Berytidae, Colobathristidae, Cymidae and Malcidae), 'largid line' (Largidae and Pyrrhocoridae), 'coreid line' (Alydidae, Coreidae, Hyocephalidae, Rhopalidae and Stenocephalidae), as well as the Lygaeidae. The differences in classification are in part explained by the alternative ranking of these taxa, as Štys' 'coreid line' is synonymous with Schaefer's Coreoidea. Most subsequent workers have upheld Schaefer's arrangement including the family composition of the superfamily (e.g. Carver et al. 1991; Schuh & Slater 1995; Henry 1997). This arrangement is followed in the Catalogue.

Henry (1997) proposed monophyly of the Coreoidea on the basis of elongate bucculae, the platelike ovipositor and loss of the Y sex chromosome. These features alone are not conclusive as only the Rhopalidae possess elongate bucculae and the Stenocephalidae and Hyocephalidae have a laciniate ovipositor. The position of the Stenocephalidae has been conjectural. Some authors considered them to hold an intermediary position between coreoids and lygaeoids (e.g. Scudder 1957; Lansbury 1965) or within the lygaeoids (e.g. Lewis & Scudder 1958). Schaefer (1981) aligned them with the Hyocephalidae, in a basal position within the Coreoidea. Henry (1997) differed from Schaefer (1964, 1981) in recognising the Rhopalidae as basal within the Coreoidea. There is, however, general agreement that the Coreidae + Alydidae and Stenocephalidae + Hyocephalidae are both well supported as sister-groups (Kumar 1965; Schaefer 1964, 1981; Henry 1997).