Ptiliidae
The featherwing-beetle family (Ptiliidae) includes the smallest British beetle Nephanes titan (pictured right) and even the largest British ptiliids are only 1.2 mm. Their small size has made them unpopular and tends to mean that they’re amongst the last families for a coleopterist to get to grips with. This has been compounded by a gap in the literature: Joy’s (1932) keys are too outdated to be useful and until now there has been no more up-to-date English language key to the British and Irish fauna. However, Michael Darby has written the Ptiliidae chapter for the forthcoming book Beetles of Britain and Ireland, Vol. 1 by Andrew Duff. This includes whole-beetle photos illustrating representatives of each of the 18 genera. I am very pleased to be able to make a test version of these keys available for download:
Right click on Ptiliidae chapter and Save to your computer (8MB download).
Please let Michael have your comments, criticisms and congratulations, either by using the Comments box below or emailing him at drm.darby (*at*) googlemail.com (replacing ‘ (*at*) ‘ with the @ symbol).
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One Response “Ptiliidae”
Hi Mark, Just found my first Ptiliidae in the moth trap and thanks to the keys down to genus Acrotrichis.
This looks like a fantastic book, if these keys are typical.