Guide to Palearctic Flea Beetle Genera
(Coleoptera: Chrysomelidae: Alticinae)

Oedionychis Latreille

Oedionychis cinctus Click here to see a larger image

Oedionychus Berthold, 1827:401 (nomen nudum) Oedionychis Latreille, 1829:154 (type species Altica marginella Olivier = Chrysomela cinctus F., 1787, Spain, by monotypy). - Chevrolat in Dejean, 1836:384. - Heikertinger, 1924a:31; 1925:53, 55, 56. - Heikertinger & Csiki in Junk, 1940:431. - Konstantinov & Vandenberg, 1996:367. Lithonoma Chevrolat in Dejean, 1836:383 (type species Galeruca marginella F. = O.cinctus F., by monotypy). - Chevrolat in O'Dorbigny, 1845:6. - Foudras, 1859 (1860):338. - Heikertinger & Csiki in Junk, 1940:431 (synonymized). Chloephaga Weise, 1899:138, a junior homonym of Chloephaga Eyton, 1838 (type species Oedionychis cretica Jacoby, 1886 = O.sexmaculatus Illiger, 1807, by original designation).

Distribution: Southwestern Europe, northern Africa.

Statistics: 4 species in Palearctic.

Host Plants: Plantago (Doguet 1994).

Comments: According to Bechyné (1951, 1957) and Wilcox (1983) all the New World species previously considered as Oedionychis belong to Kuschelina Bechyné, Capraita Bechyné, Alagoasa Bechyné and to other New World genera.

Diagnosis: Body medium sized, ovoid, more or less flat. Color metallic green, blue or violet, sometimes with yellow longitudinal stripes or spots on elytron and lateral margin of pronotum and elytron.
Head pro-hypognathous, oval, slightly ovoid, convex from lateral view. Frontal ridge extremely short, narrow, forming high perpendicular ridge towards clypeus. Antennal calli small, raised, delimited from vertex by furrow, latter sometimes disappearing among large punctures of vertex. Interantennal space usually as wide as diameter of antennal socket, but distances between anterior margin of head and anterior margin of antennal socket notably smaller than diameter of antennal socket. Eye small. Clypeus usual. Antenna 11-segmented, filiform basally, apical segments slightly moniliform.
Pronotum wide, flat widely explanate laterally, without any impressions basally. Procoxal cavity open behind. Intercoxal prosternal process very narrow. Meso- and metasternum narrow.
Elytra ovoid, flat, greatly explanate laterally, with well developed humeral calli. Elytral punctures very coarse, irregularly placed . Epipleuron subvertical, curved inward, notably tapering toward elytral apex.
Metafemur greatly swollen. Metatibia short, with distinct longitudinal impression dorsally. First metatarsal segment wide, second and third narrow. Fourth metatarsal segment unusually swollen.

Generic Key	Generic Index	Morphology	Host Plants	Overview of Palearctic Fauna	Literature Cited

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