Product Code Database
Nepomorpha is an infraorder of in the "true bug" order (Hemiptera). They belong to the "typical" bugs of the suborder Heteroptera. Due to their Aquatic insects habits, these are known as true water bugs. They occur all over the world outside the , with about 2,000 species altogether. The Nepomorpha can be distinguished from related Heteroptera by their missing or vestigial ocelli. Also, as referred to by the obsolete name Cryptocerata ("the hidden-horned ones"), their antennae are reduced, with weak muscles, and usually carried tucked against the head.
Most of the species within this infraorder live in freshwater . The exceptions are members of the Taxonomic rank Ochteroidea, which are found along the water's edge. Many of these insects are of and in some cases – like the large (Nepidae) and giant water bugs (Belostomatidae) – even small fish and . Others are or feed on . Their mouthparts form a rostrum as in all Heteroptera and most Hemiptera. With this, they pierce their food source to suck out fluids; some, like the Corixidae, are also able to chew their food to some extent, sucking up the resulting pulp. The rostrum can also be used to sting in defence; some, like the common backswimmer ( Notonecta glauca) of the Notonectidae can easily pierce the skin of humans and deliver a wound often more painful than a bee's sting.
Though the systematics and Phylogenetics of the higher Taxon of Nepomorpha were long controversial, Cladistics of mtDNA 16S and nuclear DNA 28S rDNA DNA sequence data and morphology has more recently resolved to near-perfection. The long-accepted superfamilies are all monophyletic, with the exception of the Naucoroidea, which is now Monotypic taxon with the Aphelocheiridae and Potamocoridae being split off in a new superfamily Aphelocheiroidea. The Cibariopectinata, a proposed clade established on the presence of cibariopectine structures in the food-sucking pump of some of the most advanced true water bugs (Tripartita), might indeed be monophyletic. Alternatively it might be junior synonym with the Tripartita, the Ochteroidea having lost the cibariopectines again due to the different requirements of their (for Nepomorpha) unusual lifestyle.
About seven superfamilies, in sequence, from the most ancient to the most modern lineage, have been identified in the Infraorder Nepomorpha:
|
|
