The true bugs are probably as well known as any of the major orders of insects in Oklahoma. The K. C. Emerson Entomology Museum at Oklahoma State University contains approximately 80 drawers of Hemiptera and many of the specimens have been identified by specialists in the various groups. Identification aids have been available for most families of bugs for many years and several workers have produced surveys of the local fauna.
It would seem that a great many Oklahoma species would be recorded in the literature. However, when checking the most recent Hemiptera Catalog, one quickly finds this is not the case. Even some of our very common species are not shown to occur in Oklahoma.
The following list is an attempt to rectify this situation. It includes all species listed in the Hemiptera Catalog (Henry and Froeschner, 1988), species in the OSU Collection, and other literature records. The bibliography is limited to locally produced papers (through 1988), most of which are not in the literature cited section of the Hemiptera Catalog. More recent papers are cited following the previous citations.
This checklist is anything but complete. Even though families such as Lygaeidae and Pentatomidae have been studied, there are probably species in Oklahoma that have not been collected. The largest family (Miridae) is not well studied and may only represent half of our species. This list includes 523 species in 280 genera and 34 families. Corrections, additions or comments would be very welcome, please contact:
Don Arnold
Department of Entomology and Plant Pathology
Oklahoma State University
127 NRC
Stillwater, OK 74078
Tel: (405) 744-9397
e-mail don.arnold@okstate.edu .
