Phengodidae

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

iPhengodidae

Scientific classification

Kingdom:	Animalia
Phylum:	Arthropoda
Class:	Insecta
Order:	Coleoptera
Family:	Phengodidae LeConte, 1861

Genera

about 30 genera, see text

The beetle family Phengodidae is known also as glowworm beetles or glowworms. The females and larvae have bioluminescent organs. They occur throughout the New World from extreme southern Canada to Chile. The family Rhagophthalmidae, an Old World group, used to be included in the Phengodidae.

Larval and larviform female glowworms are predators, feeding on millipedes and other arthropods occurring in soil and litter. The winged males, which are often attracted to lights at night, are short-lived and probably do not feed. Females are much larger than the males and are completely larviform. Males may be luminescent, but females and larvae have a series of luminescent organs on trunk segments which emit yellow or green light, and sometimes an additional head organ which emits red light, as in railroad worms.

This family is distinct from the fireflies (family Lampyridae), which may also be called "glow-worms" in its larval stage. It also apparently includes the family Telegeusidae, which are only differentiated from phengodids by the unusual modifications of their mouthparts (thus, it appears that Phengodidae is paraphyletic if telegeusids are treated as a family).