An Updated Checklist of the Coleoptera Associated with Livestock Dung on Pastures in America North of Mexico

Citation

Bezanson, G.A., Floate, K.D. (2019). An Updated Checklist of the Coleoptera Associated with Livestock Dung on Pastures in America North of Mexico, 73(3), 655-683. http://dx.doi.org/10.1649/0010-065X-73.3.655

Plain language summary

Cattle dung provides habitat for hundreds of insect species that differ by state or province. These insects include a few pest species, but mainly insects that are beneficial. The feeding and breeding activities of these beneficial species scatter the dung to accelerate the cycling of nutrients back into pasture soils. Other species are predators or parasites of pest species.
Knowing the geographic distributions of these species is useful when studying dung insect communities. The current paper provides a list of 314 species of beetles associated with cattle dung in North America north of Mexico. For each species, its distribution is reported by province and state.

Abstract

© 2019 Coleopterists Society. All rights reserved.Most distributional lists are limited to geographical areas such as states or provinces and often include information regarding smaller subsets of coprophagous insects. This checklist of Coleoptera (Geotrupidae, Histeridae, Hydrophilidae, Scarabaeidae, Staphylinidae, and Trogidae) associated with livestock dung on pastures in Canada and the USA builds on the data previously compiled by R. R. Blume in 1985 and adds several improvements to make it more robust and applicable to a modern audience. These improvements include information regarding only coprophagous species, their current distributional records in North America, different types of primarily livestock dung they are attracted to, and taxonomic changes. For added convenience, a Microsoft Excel® file has been created to permit the reader to generate a specific checklist of coprophilous beetles for any state or province in America north of Mexico or dung type of interest.

Publication date

2019-09-01

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