Article · Wikipedia archive · Last revised Jul 25, 2026

Cantharoid beetles

The Cantharoid beetles are a group of beetles formerly placed in the now deprecated superfamily Cantharoidea. The family was found to be non-monophyletic taxonomic and most former members are now placed within the accepted superfamily Elateroidea. Some former families, Drilidae and Omalisidae, are now placed within Elateridae. One former family, Cneoglossidae, is now in the superfamily Byrrhoidea.

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Jul 25, 2026
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Cantharoid beetles
Photuris lucicrescens
Photuris lucicrescens1
Scientific classification Edit this classification
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Arthropoda
Clade: Pancrustacea
Class: Insecta
Order: Coleoptera
Suborder: Polyphaga
Infraorder: Elateriformia
Superfamily: Elateroidea
Leach, 1815
Families

10, see text

The Cantharoid beetles are a group of beetles formerly placed in the now deprecated superfamily Cantharoidea.23 The family was found to be non-monophyletic taxonomic and most former members are now placed within the accepted superfamily Elateroidea.4 Some former families, Drilidae and Omalisidae, are now placed within Elateridae.5 One former family, Cneoglossidae, is now in the superfamily Byrrhoidea.4

Families

The superfamily contained ten families.23 These are now families in Elateroidea,4 except where indicated.

  • Brachypsectridae Leconte & Horn, 1883 (Texas beetles).
  • Cneoglossidae Champion, 1897. Now treated as a family in the superfamily Byrrhoidea.4
  • Homalisidae . This monotypic family contained the genus Homalisus, which is now treated as genus Omalisus in subfamily Omalisinae of Elateridae.
  • Lycidae Laporte, 1836 (net-winged beetles)
  • Drilidae Blanchard, 1845 (false firefly beetles). Now treated as tribe Drilini in subfamily Agryoninae of Elateridae.
  • Phengodidae LeConte 1861 (glowworm beetles)
  • Telegeusidae Leng, 1920 (long-lipped beetles). Sometimes treated as subfamily of Omethidae.
  • Lampyridae Rafinesque, 1815 (firefly beetles)
  • Omethidae LeConte, 1861 – (false soldier beetles)
  • Cantharidae Imhoff, 1856 (1815) (soldier beetles)
References

References

  1. Cirrus Digital Firefly Photuris lucicrescens
  2. Crowson, R.A. (1972). "A review of the classification of Cantharoidea (Coleoptera), with the definition of two new families, Cneoglossidae and Omethidae". Revista Univ Madr. 21: 35–77.
  3. Sybil P. Parker (1982). Synopsis and classification of living organisms. McGraw-Hill. ISBN 978-0-07-079031-5.
  4. Slipinski, S. A.; Leschen, R. A. B.; Lawrence, J. F. "Order Coleoptera Linnaeus, 1758.". In Zhang, Z.-Q. (ed.). Animal biodiversity: An outline of higher-level classification and survey of taxonomic richness.
  5. Kusy, D; Motyka, M; Bocek, M; Vogler, AP; Bocak, L (2018). "Genome sequences identify three families of Coleoptera as morphologically derived click beetles (Elateridae)". Sci. Rep. 8 (1): 17084. doi:10.1038/s41598-018-35328-0. PMC 6244081. PMID 30459416..
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