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The Elateroidea are a large superfamily of beetles. It contains the familiar click beetles, fireflies, and soldier beetles and their relatives. It consists of about 25,000 species.[1]
| Elateroidea Temporal range: | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Denticollis linearis, a click beetle (Elateridae) | |
Scientific classification  | |
| Domain: | Eukaryota |
| Kingdom: | Animalia |
| Phylum: | Arthropoda |
| Class: | Insecta |
| Order: | Coleoptera |
| Suborder: | Polyphaga |
| Infraorder: | Elateriformia |
| Superfamily: | Elateroidea Leach, 1815 |
| Families | |
|
About 15-20, see text | |
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Elateroidea is a morphologically diverse group, including hard-bodied beetles with 5 abdominal ventrites, soft-bodied beetles with 7-8 ventrites connected with membranes (formerly known as cantharoids), and beetles with intermediate forms.[2] They have a range of sizes and colours, but in terms of shape, they are usually narrow and parallel-sided as adults.[3]
Many of the sclerotised elateroids (Cerophytidae, Eucnemidae, Throscidae, Elateridae) have a clicking mechanism.[4] This is a peg on the prothorax which fits into a cavity in the mesothorax. When a click beetle bends its body, the peg snaps into the cavity, causing the beetle's body to straighten so suddenly that it jumps into the air.[5]
Most beetles capable of bioluminescence are in the Elateroidea, in the families Lampyridae (~2000 species), Phengodidae (~200 species), Rhagophthalmidae (100 species) and Elateridae (>100 species).[4]
Females in several lineages, including Lycidae, Lampyridae, Phengogidae and Rhagophthalmidae, do not pupate and remain in a larval form. This trait is estimated to have evolved independently at least three times within the superfamily.[6]
Some Elateroidea, including species of Cantharidae[7] and Lycidae,[8] have bright aposematic colours to signal to predators that they are poisonous and so should not be eaten.
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The validity and relationships of some families, such as Podabrocephalidae are not fully resolved. The family Rhinorhipidae has recently been removed to its own superfamily, with evidence that it is a basal taxon within Elateriformia dating to an Upper Triassic/Lower Jurassic split from other extant beetle lineages.[9]
- Artematopodidae Lacordaire, 1857 – soft-bodied plant beetles (= Eurypogonidae)
- Brachypsectridae Leconte & Horn, 1883 – Texas beetles
- Cantharidae Imhoff, 1856 – soldier beetles
- Cerophytidae Latreille, 1834 – rare click beetles
- Elateridae Leach, 1815 – click beetles (including Ampedidae, Balgidae, Dicronychidae, Drilidae, Lissomidae, Plastoceridae, Prosternidae, Protelateridae, Pyrophoridae, Synaptidae)
- Eucnemidae Eschscholtz, 1829 – false click beetles (including Anischiidae and Perothopidae)
- Iberobaeniidae Bocak et al., 2016
- Jurasaidae Rosa, Costa, Klamp & Kundrata, 2020
- Lycidae – net-winged beetles
- Omethidae LeConte, 1861 – false firefly beetles (including Telegeusidae)
- Throscidae Laporte, 1840 – false metallic wood-boring beetles (= Trixagidae)
- †Mysteriomorphidae Alekseev and Ellenberger, 2019 (Cretaceous)
- Lampyroid clade
- †Cretophengodidae Li, Kundrata, Tihelka & Cai, 2021 (Cretaceous)
- Lampyridae Latreille, 1817 – firefly beetles
- Phengodidae LeConte 1861 – glowworm beetles (including Cydistinae[1])
- Rhagophthalmidae Olivier, 1907 (sometimes in Phengodidae, might belong in Lampyridae)
- Sinopyrophoridae Bi & Li, 2019[4][10]
- Incertae sedis:
- †Anoeuma Li, Kundrata & Cai, 2022 (Cretaceous)
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Some morphological and molecular phylogenetic analyses find that Byrrhoidea is either a monophyletic or paraphyletic group closely related to Elateroidea.[11]
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