Subfamily Cetoniinae

<I>Eupoecila australasiae</I> (Donovan, 1805)

Eupoecila australasiae (Donovan, 1805)

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Subfamily Cetoniinae

Compiler and date details

1 December 2002 - Gerasimos Cassis & Tom A. Weir; updated by Andrew A. Calder, CSIRO Entomology, Canberra, Australia

Introduction

The Cetoniinae (commonly known as flower beetles) are a large, cosmopolitan subfamily consisting of about 510 genera and 3,600 species. As in the previous catalogue (Houston 1992), the tribal classification derived from Krikken (1984) who radically revised the world classification, is also followed in this Catalogue. He gave a key to all the suprageneric groups but his family ranking for the cetoniines is not accepted here and the group is retained within the Scarabaeidae. Krikken's tribal classification is accepted here although his subfamily Valginae is relegated to tribal status. He also listed the included genera in each tribe and subtribe and gave the number of species in each genus. Krikken (1986) gave a provisional checklist, as well as distribution information, of all species of the Valgini (as Valginae). Prior to Krikken's efforts, modern workers had to rely on the classification found in the world catalogues of Schenkling (1921, 1922) which is based on the unnatural Schoch classification (Schoch 1894, 1895a, 1895b, 1895c, 1896a, 1896b, 1896c, 1898a, 1898b, 1898c) and has considerable errors.

Burmeister (1842) gave the first world treatment for the group. The generic arrangement of Krikken (1984) is followed where possible. Where the species composition of genera is not known, however, we have referred to Schenkling (1921). Krikken (1984) removed some of Kraatz's genera (Kraatz 1880) from synonymy, but some of these arrangements were not followed if it was considered premature or if there was not enough information.

The Australian fauna consists of 29 genera and 146 species. The majority of the Australian fauna have been assigned to the tribe Schizorhinini which is endemic to the Australasian Region. The Cetoniini is a large, somewhat homogeneous group represented in Australia by the mainly Oriental genus Glycyphana Burmeister, and the mainly Oriental and Palaearctic genus Protaetia Burmeister. The Valgini is a small tribe with the Australian members belonging to the genus Microvalgus Kraatz, which is also found in the Oriental and Afrotropical Regions. In Australia, most species are found in the wet forests of tropical Queensland (Moore 1986).

The first Australian species described were Cetonia stolata Fabricius, 1775 and Cetonia fasciata Fabricius, 1775. Macleay (1863, 1871, 1888) described 16 species and Thomson (1857, 1877, 1878a, 1878b, 1878c, 1878d, 1878e, 1880a, 1880b) described 11 species and a number of new genera of which only one is valid. Janson (1873a, 1873b, 1874, 1876, 1877, 1887, 1889) described 20 new species in a number of small papers.

Kraatz (1880) monographed the Australian fauna describing 12 new genera, seven of which he retained in synonymy. Lea (1914) monographed the Australian fauna; listed all the known taxa and described 32 new species. He also excluded the following species from the Australian fauna: Panglaphyra duboulayi Thomson, 1879, Schizorhina ebenina Butler, 1865, Diceros plagiatus Gory & Percheron, 1833, Cetonia felina Gory & Percheron, 1833, Gnathocera dorsalis Gory and Percheron, 1833 and Lompatera aurata Gestro, 1879. Bacchus (1974) revised the Australian members of Glycyphana. Allard (1995a, 1995b) and Rigout & Allard (1997) monographed the tribe Schizorhinini, describing several new Australian species, reorganising the generic classification and providing illustrations of nearly every known Australian species. The latter is the most recent work on this group.

BIOLOGY
The biology of the Cetoniinae, especially the larval stages, is largely unknown. The adults appear to be nectar and pollen feeders and are attracted to plant exudates. They are very strong flyers and spend a lot of time on the wing in search of flowers and oviposition sites (Moore 1986). The adult flight behaviour is unusual in that they can spread their wings without raising the elytra (Lawrence & Britton 1991). The larvae are known to live in decaying vegetable matter, rotten wood or soil and, in captivity, feed on soft fruit (Krikken 1984; Lawrence & Britton 1991). The larvae are able to move on their backs by using tergal folds densely clothed with strong bristles. Partial life histories are known for a few of the Australian species, including the common Eupoecila australasiae (Donovan) and Chlorobapta frontalis (Donovan), Diaphonia dorsalis Donovan, Micropoecila cincta (Gory & Percheron), Schizorrhina atropunctata (Kirby) and Trichaulax philipsii (Schreibers) (Moore 1986). The larvae of the scale-covered Microvalgussa species live in termite nests. The group is undoubtedly most diverse in the tropical regions of the world. Some species are economic pests.

Šípek & Král (2012) provide "historical overview on the study of immature Cetoniinae and provides an up-to-date list of 194 so far described taxa at the species level".

Diagnosis

The adults are small to large sized (3 mm for some Microvalgus species to 40 mm for some species of Dilochrosis, Diaphonia and Trichaulax), and are usually brightly coloured, often metallic. In the adult stage, they can be distinguished from other scarabaeid subfamilies by a combination of the following characters: equal tarsal claws; elytra without narrow membranous margin, somewhat truncate, leaving the pygidium exposed; abdominal spiracles diverging so that several lie on the abdominal sternites with at least one exposed; mid coxae transverse or only slightly oblique; fore coxae conical, produced ventrally; mesothoracic epimera visible from above; and dorsum somewhat flattened (Lawrence & Britton 1991). The larvae are characterised by and can be distinguished from other scarabaeid subfamilies by: body stout and very hairy; apical antennal segment as wide as penultimate segment; galea and lacinia fused to form a mala; anal cleft transverse; sternum 9 without a raster of longitudinal rows of spines; mandible with ventral stridulating area; labrum symmetrical with deeply pigmented notch on each side of midline; head partly covered by prothorax; and legs short.