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- ›Winged and Once-winged Insects
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- ›Water, Rove, Scarab, Long-horned, Leaf, and Snout Beetles
- ›Staphyliniform Beetles
- ›Hister and False Clown Beetles

Hister Beetles
Histeridae
Histeridae is a family of beetles commonly known as Clown beetles or Hister beetles. This very diverse group of beetles contains 3,900 species found worldwide. They can be easily identified by their shortened elytra that leaves two of the seven tergites exposed, and their elbowed antennae with clubbed ends. These predatory feeders are most active at night and will fake death if they feel threatened. This family of beetles will occupy almost any kind of niche...
29 branches of this family, most-observed first

Histerinae
subfamilyHisterinae

Saprininae
subfamilySaprininae

Dendrophilinae
subfamilyDendrophilinae

Abraeinae
subfamilyAbraeinae

Haeteriinae
subfamilyHaeteriinae

Tribalinae
subfamilyTribalinae

Onthophilinae
subfamilyOnthophilinae

Chlamydopsinae
subfamilyChlamydopsinae

Nasaltus
genusNasaltus

Trypanaeinae
subfamilyTrypanaeinae

Trypeticinae
subfamilyTrypeticinae

Niposoma
genusNiposoma

Niponiinae
subfamilyNiponiinae

Eopachylopus
genusEopachylopus

Microsaprinus
genusMicrosaprinus

Neosantalus
genusNeosantalus

Euxenister
genusEuxenister

Renclasea
genusRenclasea

Asiaster
genusAsiaster
Eulomalus
genusEulomalus
Santalus
genusSantalus

Anaglymma
genusAnaglymma
Scapicoelis
genusScapicoelis
Spathochus
genusSpathochus
Pilothris
genusPilothris
Trypobius
genusTrypobius
Gomyopsis
genusGomyopsis
Thaumataerius
genusThaumataerius
Troglosternus
genusTroglosternus
Where it lives
Recorded sightings
—
geo-referenced records in GBIF, from museums, herbaria and field observers.
Drag the globe to turn it. Dots are where records exist, not a range map; darker means more records.
In the stacks
Searching the stacks…
Every page naming Histeridae in the Biodiversity Heritage Library →
This page is assembled live from iNaturalist, GBIF, Wikipedia, the Source Library and the Internet Archive. It is not yet part of the hand-edited codex. iNaturalist taxon 68869.