Familia Mesoveliidae Douglas & Scott, 1867

Family MESOVELIIDAE Douglas & Scott, 1867 ‑ water treaders, pondweed bugs

N.M. Andersen

The family includes 11 genera and about 40 species, distributed worldwide. All species are predators of arthropods. The yellowish green bugs live in moist surroundings, either humid terrestrial habitats (litter, moss), marginal aquatic habitats, or on water surfaces extensively covered with floating leaves of water plants. They overwinter as eggs, inserted into plant tissue. There are five (in some species four) larval instars. Most species are wing-dimorphic but winged adults are usually rare.

World catalogue: Horváth, 1929a (outdated). Palaearctic catalogue: Andersen, 1995c. Monographs: Andersen, 1982a (general account); Andersen & J.T. Polhemus, 1980 (check‑list included); Horváth, 1915a (outdated). Faunal reviews: China ‑ Hoffmann, 1941; Chen & Andersen, 1993; France ‑ Poisson, 1957a; Italy ‑ Servadei, 1967; Tamanini, 1979; the former Soviet Union ‑ Kanyukova, 1979a; W Palaearctic ‑ Stichel, 1955‑1956. Biology: Cobben, 1968a; J.T. Polhemus & Chapman, 1979; Southwood & Leston, 1959; Zimmermann, 1984.

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