An Online Species File for the Lygaeoidea (Hemiptera: Heteroptera: Pentatomomorpha) of the World

DELLAPÉ P. M.; HENRY T. J.

Washington DC

Congreso; PROCEEDINGS OF THE FIFTH QUADRENNIAL MEETING OF THE INTERNATIONAL HETEROPTERISTS' SOCIETY; 2014

Presented is an overview of our work on the forthcoming online World Catalogue of the Lygaeoidea (Hemiptera: Heteroptera), using Species File Software (http://software.speciesfile.org/HomePage/Software/SoftwareHomePage.aspx) developed by David Eades, Illinois Natural History Survey. The Lygaeoidea are one of the largest and most important superfamilies in the Pentatomomorpha (Hemiptera: Heteroptera), with about 5000 valid species. The Lygaeoidea Species File (LSF) is based primarily on the world Lygaeidae (sensu lato) catalogues of Slater (1964) and Slater & O´Donnell (1995), and the catalog of the Berytidae of the world by Henry & Froeschner (1998). The higher taxonomy follows the classification proposed by Henry (1997) with 15 families within the Lygaeoidea and includes certain families such as the Berytidae, Colobathristidae, and Piesmatidae not treated in the printed lygaeid catalogues. Species File is a collection of programs that provides access to and manipulation of taxonomic information stored in multiple databases. It is both an online database and a website. The database provides the detailed information about all taxa contained within the scope of the "apex taxon," in this case Lygaeoidea, and the website provides the means to interact with and modify the information contained in the database. We have developed a schedule to curate and improve the LSF in five major steps. Step I, the construction of the database from the information provided by the published catalogues, is already done. We now are working on the Step II, to clean and update the uploaded information. We will release the database once these first two steps are completed. Additional steps to come involve adding new literature for 2014 and 2015; adding digital images of type specimens from major collections, interactive keys, and distributional maps; and finally improving and maintaining the database. This Species File catalogue will be an invaluable tool for everyone interested in taxonomic and biological information on the Lygaeoidea of the world.