OVOVIVIPARITY IN SOME TENEBRIONID BEETLES
Ovoviviparity has been discovered in two species of South African opatrine tenebrionid beetles, Eurynotus capensis (F. and Melanopterus marginicollis Muls. Females carried fully developed larvae within the vagina. Three additional opatrine species which may be ovoviviparous were also identified. While ovoviviparity is a recurring phenomenon in certain groups of insects, it has been reported from only two families of Coleoptera. Nearly a dozen species of Chrysomelidae have been shown to be ovoviviparous. These are distributed among the genera Chrysomela (Rethfeldt 1924; Holmgren 1904) Orina (Holmgren 1904) and Phytodecta (Hennenberg 1927; Scheidter 1926) Viviparity and ovoviviparity are also found among certain myrmecophilous (Wasmann 1915, in Holmgren 1904) and termitophilous (Schiodte 1855, in Holmgren 1904) Staphylinidae. No other families of Coleoptera have been reported to contain ovoviviparous species.