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要旨： With most species less than 3 mm in length, aleocharine rove beetles they are among the smallest beetles and often difficult to identify. Their diversity is daunting with thousands of species worldwide. There are close to 200 described species in New Zealand but the actual number would surpass this two-fold. The aleocharine classification remains a mess because their unity of form has misled taxonomists, yet the natural histories of these beetles are vast and mind-blowing and include some of the best-studied groups as inquilines of ant and termites. Most are predatory and all are microhabitat specialists. In New Zealand some species that are in the alpine zone form large groups that exhibit scramble competition, some that are arboreal maybe specialised predators on scale insects, and those that are intertidal survive submersion into salt water. The riparian Tachyusini: super-common, super-rich, super-specialised; is an untold tale of adaptive radiation. I will introduce fascinating aspects of New Zealand’s Aleocharinae, including flower specialists, how one species lures their weevil hosts out from their wood borings, and the only known case of reverse conglobation in adult Coleoptera. |