ABSTRACT
The few North American members of this relatively small family are usually found on foliage and flowers of various plants along roadsides and woods, and other places away from cultivated plants. The immature stages of these insects sometimes run on the surface of the ground where their slender form may allow a quick glance to assume they are large ants. Our species, being of no economic significance, are seldom noted. They are essentially sap-feeders but their small numbers keep them from conspicuously harming vegetation. Several members of the subfamily Alydinae have been reported as using their beak to probe the fluids on decomposing animal carcasses, but this practice an essential or even common part of their life cycle. Only thirty-two species are known from America north of Mexico, less than a third of them ranging as far north as Canada.
