Rank Family | ||
 | ||
Similar Orthoptera, Insect, Ant cricket, Arachnocephalus, Grylloidea | ||
Mogoplistidae is a family of scaly crickets within the superfamily Grylloidea. Considered to be monophyletic, a sister taxon to the Gryllidae crickets. This family consists of 30 genera and 364 species worldwide, 4 genera and 20 species in North America.
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Ecology
These crickets can be found in the southeastern US, especially Florida, and many other sandy tropical/subtropical environments near water. Like many other crickets, they are omnivorous scavengers and will eat fungi, plant material, and other insects. Members of this family are distinguished from closely related families by the scales that covers their abdomen and parts of their thorax and resemble those of Lepidoptera.
History
The family was originally described by Brunner von Wattenwyl in 1873, but a genus (mogoplistes) was described earlier, 1838, by Serville and was the basis for the family nomenclature. Mogoplistidae has three subfamilies: Mogoplistinae, Malgasiinae and Protomogoplistinae. Little work has been completed to classify and describe these crickets although work has been done on their acoustic development and identification of new characters.
