Search

ABSTRACT The biological parameters of Necrobia rufipes (DeGeer, 1775) are estimated under controlled temperature and relative humidity. The adults, collected from industrial canine food at a supermarket in Campina Grande, state of Paraíba, Brazil, were taken to the Laboratory of Insect Systematics and Bioecology at the Universidade Estadual da Paraíba, in order to ascertain the matrix creation. The individuals were placed in boxes with hermetic sealing, each containing 20 adults, and were fed a diet of 1.8 g of fish flour, a slice of bacon, and four dog food pellets. A total of 160 eggs were individualized in the plastic recipient in a base of paper filter, covered with voil tissue, and secured with an elastic cord. The containers were placed in a B.O.D. camera at temperatures of 20, 24, 28, and 32 °C and relative humidity of 70%. The larvae received a diet composed of 0.45 g of fish flour, a slice of bacon, and dog food pellet. The development of phases was monitored daily. The life cycle from egg to adult was completed in four temperatures and encompassed four larval instars. The development speed at all stage phases was affected by temperature. Higher thermal conditions increase development speed and consequently reduce the duration of the immature and adult stages. The development of N. rufipes was completed at 20 and 32 °C, two temperatures that are not considered optimal for insect development. The fact that N. rufipes is a pest of storage grains, however, may explain why this insect is able to tolerate and develop under suboptimal temperatures.

ABSTRACT In 2000, Cleide Costa published a paper presenting the state of knowledge of the Neotropical Coleopte ra, with a focus on the Brazilian fauna. Twenty-four years later, thanks to the development of the Coleoptera section of the Taxonomic Catalog of the Brazilian Fauna (CTFB - Catálogo Taxonômico da Fauna do Brasil) through the collaboration of 100 coleopterists from all over the globe, we can build on Costa’s work and present an updated overview of the state of knowledge of the beetles from Brazil. There are currently 35,699 species in 4,958 genera and 116 families known to occur in the country, including representatives of all extant suborders and superfamilies. Our data show that the Brazilian beetle fauna is the richest on the planet, concentrating 9% of the world species diversity, with some estimates accounting to up to 15% of the global total. The most diverse family in numbers of genera is Cerambycidae (1,056 genera), while in number of species it is Chrysomelidae (6,079 species). Conotrachelus Dejean, 1835 (Curculionidae) is the most species-rich genus, with 570 species. The French entomologist Maurice Pic is the author who has contributed the most to the naming of species recorded from Brazil, with 1,794 valid names in 36 families, whereas the Brazilians Ubirajara R. Martins and Maria Helena M. Galileo are the only ones among the top-ten authors to have named species in the 21st century. Currently, approximately 144 new species of Brazilian beetles are described each year, and this average is projected to increase in the next decade to 180 species per year, or about one new Brazilian beetle every two days.

ABSTRACT The members of the subfamily Triatominae (Heteroptera, Reduviidae) are important because they feed on vertebrate blood, acting as vectors of Trypanosoma cruzi (Chagas, 1909), the protozoan that causes Chagas disease or American trypanosomiasis. There are currently 158 species, 155 extant and three extinct species, within 18 genera and five tribes in Triatominae. The sustainable control of the vector transmission of Chagas disease closely relies on the availability of data on the triatomine species present in a specific region, their distribution patterns, the natural infection rate of T. cruzi, synanthropic tendencies, and ecobiological characteristics. The taxonomic catalog of the Brazilian fauna (CTFB) is an online platform available at http://fauna.jbrj.gov.br, which brings taxonomic information on Brazilian fauna. Based on information from the platform, in the present paper, a checklist of genera and 64 currently known Brazilian species is given, as well as updated geographic distribution information. We provide a summary of each species’ public health importance, drawing from relevant literature.