Lampyrinae

Lampyrinae
	Male adult of
Scientific classification
Kingdom:	Animalia
Phylum:	Arthropoda
Class:	Insecta
Order:	Coleoptera
Family:	Lampyridae
Subfamily:	Lampyrinae; Rafinesque, 1815
Tribes
	Cratomorphini (disputed); Lamprocerini ; Lampyrini ; Photinini (paraphyletic?); and see text.
Synonyms
	Amydetinae ; Psilocladinae (disputed);

The Lampyrinae are a large subfamily of fireflies (Lampyridae). The exact delimitation, and the internal systematics, are a matter of debate; for long this group was used as a "wastebin taxon" to hold any fireflies with insufficiently resolved relationships. Regardless, they are very diverse even as a good monophyletic group, containing flashing and continuous-glow fireflies from the Holarctic and some tropical forms as well. The ancestral Lampyrinae probably had no or very primitive light signals; in any case several modern lineages appear to have returned to the pheromone communication of their ancestors independently.^[1]

The Cyphonocerinae were once contained within Lampyrinae, but they are well distinct. The , though, seem to be a de facto junior synonym of the tribe Photinini, but this requires further study. The are a former subfamily that is nowadays largely but not completely contained within Lampyrinae as well. The tribe Pleotomini seems to be a specialized lineage of Lampyrini and is here included therein, while the Photinini seem to comprise two rather distinct lineages, one of which might warrant separation as tribe Phosphaenini. Meanwhile, the Cratomorphini could just be an assemblage of unrelated ancient Lampyrinae and altogether invalid as a tribe.^[1]

With these changes and uncertainties, several genera are of poorly resolved position in this group; for example:

Hoffmannsegg in Illiger, 1807
Lamprigera Motschulsky, 1853
(Photinini/?)

The genus is better tentatively included in the Luciolinae.^[1]^[2]

References[]

^ ^a ^b ^c Stanger-Hall, Kathrin F.; Lloyd, James E. & Hillis, David M. (2007): Phylogeny of North American fireflies (Coleoptera: Lampyridae): Implications for the evolution of light signals. Mol. Phylogenet. Evol. 45(1): 33-49. doi:10.1016/j.ympev.2007.05.013 PMID 17644427 PDF fulltext
^ Fu, Xin Hua & Ballantyne, Lesley A. (2008): Taxonomy and behaviour of lucioline fireflies (Coleoptera: Lampyridae: Luciolinae) with redefinition and new species of Pygoluciola Wittmer from mainland China and review of Luciola LaPorte. Zootaxa 1733: 1–44. PDF abstract

This firefly article is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by .

[st-1] Stanger-Hall, Kathrin F.; Lloyd, James E. & Hillis, David M. (2007): Phylogeny of North American fireflies (Coleoptera: Lampyridae): Implications for the evolution of light signals. Mol. Phylogenet. Evol. 45(1): 33-49. doi:10.1016/j.ympev.2007.05.013 PMID 17644427 PDF fulltext

[fu-2] Fu, Xin Hua & Ballantyne, Lesley A. (2008): Taxonomy and behaviour of lucioline fireflies (Coleoptera: Lampyridae: Luciolinae) with redefinition and new species of Pygoluciola Wittmer from mainland China and review of Luciola LaPorte. Zootaxa 1733: 1–44. PDF abstract

[1]

[2]