Subfamily Eumolpinae Hope, 1840

Eumolpinae

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Subfamily Eumolpinae Hope, 1840

Eumolpinae Hope, F.W. 1840. The Coleopterist's Manual, containing various families, genera, and species, of beetles, recorded by Linneus and Fabricius. Also, descriptions of newly discovered and unpublished insects. London : Bowdery & Kerby Vol. 3 vi 191 pp. 3 pls. [162].
Megascelidinae Chapuis, F. 1874. Famille des Phytophages. In, Laccordaire, T. & Chapuis, F. (eds). Histoire naturelle des insectes. Genera des Coléoptères. Paris : Libraire Encyclopédique de Roret Vol. 10 455 pp. [82].

Introduction

The subfamily Eumolpinae is large with approximately 500 genera and 7000 species worldwide (Seeon & Wilcox 1982). The Australian fauna comprises some 37 described genera and 436 species, occurring throughout the continent. These numbers are only approximate as there has been no serious revision of the subfamily for 120 years. The Eumolpinae are particularly diverse in warm temperate and tropical regions.

The traditional concept of Eumolpinae included genera that are now placed in Spilopyrinae (q.v.) and Synetinae, and excluded genera that comprised the former subfamily Megascelidinae. Neither of the latter occurs in the Australian Region. The modern concept of the Eumolpinae places it in close relationship to the larval case-bearers, Lamprosomatinae and Cryptocephalinae (Reid 1995, 2000; Gomez-Zurita et al. 2008).

Eumolpinae adults feed on leaves, flowers and/or fruit of a wide variety of angiosperms and a few gymnosperms (Jolivet & Hawkeswood 1995). Adults may scar fruit, reducing the value of crops. Eggs are laid in soil or in faecally covered clusters on plants, from which larvae drop into soil. The known larvae are white, cylindrical, soil-inhabiting root feeders, some of which cause commercially significant damage to crops. Pupation takes place in soil.

Several large genera occur in Australia including Rhyparida (approximately 100 species), Edusella (90), Geloptera (80) and Eboo (50). Rhyparida and Geloptera are most diverse in the wet tropics whereas Edusella and Eboo are associated with sclerophyllous vegetation, particularly Myrtaceae, throughout the continent (Matthews & Reid 2002). Eboo is a particularly difficult genus as it shows strong sexual dimorphism (Reid 1993).

Little biological information is available for Australian species (Matthews & Reid 2002). Unpublished host records show that a large proportion of Australian species feed on eucalypts and many other species feed on acacia. Many rainforest taxa appear to be polyphagous. Some species of Rhyparida occasionally 'irrupt' in huge numbers in coastal Queensland, defoliating trees, while a few other species of this genus may be minor pests of sugar-cane (Allsopp & Fischer 1999). The single species of Colasposoma is an occasional pest of sweet-potato (Reid & Storey 1993).

Male eumolpines often have strongly developed secondary sexual features, such as enlarged sensory organs, modified hind legs and abdominal venters, but the behavioural biology of this subfamily is unstudied.

Diagnosis

After Reid (2000). Adult: antennal sockets not on anterior margin of head; procoxal cavity closed by insertion of hypomeral lobes into apices of prosternal process; mandible without large internal prostheca; wings usually with 2 anal cells; apices of tibiae with 0-1 spurs; without bifid tarsal setae; ventrites 1 & 2 or 4 & 5 not fused; tegmen without dorsal cap.
Larva: antennae 1-2 segmented; labial palpi 1-segmented; 0-2 pairs of stemmata; mandibles triangular; spiracles biforous; tibia without paronychial appendix; pretarsus elongate, almost as long as tibiotarsus.