Volume 48, Number 1,
May 2002:
Scorpionflies, Hangingflies, and other Mecoptera

Text-only version

ISSUE HOME PAGE

ABOUT THIS ISSUE
- about KSN
- about the author

IN THIS ISSUE
- The Order Mecoptera
- Fossils
- Modern Species
- Family Panorpidae
- Family Bittacidae
- Family Meropeidae
- Family Panorpodidae
- Family Boreidae
- Key to the Families of North American Mecoptera (Adults)
- References

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Scorpionflies, Hangingflies, and other Mecoptera
by Geroge W. Byers

MODERN SPECIES

The nine families of extant Mecoptera have a variety of geographical distributions.  Two of these families, Eomeropidae, with the single genus Notiothauma in southern South America, and Apteropanorpidae, including only Apteropanorpa in Tasmania, Australiea, have limited ranges.  They will not be considered further here. Two other families, the Choristidae, with three genera in Australia, and the Nannochoristidae (two genera), with the zoogeographically fascinating occurrence in Australia, New Zealand, and southern South America, will also not be dealt with further in this pamphlet.

Family Panorpodidae occurs in the Appalachian region and in the Pacific Northwest in North America, as well as in eastern Asia.  Boreidae are found in eastern North America and in the Rocky Mountains and Pacific States.  Since species of neither of these families have been found anywhere near Kansas, they will be discussed only briefly, later.

Three families remain.  The Panorpidae (a single genus in North America, Europe and Asia, and two more genera in Asia), the Bittacidae (with 17 genera, widespread in North America, South America, Europe, Africa, Asia, and Australia), and the peculiar little family Meropeidae (one genus with one species in eastern North America and another genus with only a single species in southwestern Australia). Representatives of all these three families have been found in Kansas, to some extent.  Since these families differ in various aspects of their biology, they will be discussed separately.