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NEUROPTERA, Berothidae -- <Images> & <Juveniles>

Berothidae or beaded lacewings, are a family of winged insects of the order Neuroptera. The family was first named by Anton Handlirsch in 1906.

Berothidae is very closely related to the thorny lacewings which are often included in the Berothidae as subfamily "Rhachiberothinae" but occasionally are considered the distinct family Rhachiberothidae or included as a subfamily in the mantidflies. Mantidflies, family Mantispidae, are another group of rather close relatives, and at least some of the probably paraphyletic group of fossil forms collectively called "Mesithonidae" also seem to be quite close. The family consists of 22 genera and 100 living species distributed discontinuously world wide with most being subtropical to tropical.^[1] Eleven extinct genera with a total of thirteen species have been described from the fossil record.

The peculiar genus Lomamyia cannot be robustly assigned to any one subfamily. In addition, a considerable fossil diversity of beaded lacewings is known from the Late Jurassic onwards, containing numerous genera which are likewise basal or incertae sedis:

References: Please refer to <biology.ref.htm>, [Additional references may be found at: MELVYL Library]