Nicrophorus pustulatus
species of beetle
Nicrophorus pustulatus, also known as the pustulated carrion beetle or blistered burying beetle, is a species of burying beetle that was described by Johann Karl Wilhelm Illiger in 1807. This species is native to North America. N. pustulatus exhibits unique habitat utilization and breeding behaviour relative to other members of the genus. This species may be the only described example of a true parasitoid targeting a vertebrate host.
Taxonomy
Phylogeny
N. pustulatus is one of over 60 extant species in the genus Nicrophorus. This genus belongs to the subfamily Nicrophorinae (sexton beetles), which is one of two subfamilies in the family Silphidae (carrion beetles, large carrion beetles, or burying beetles). The family Silphidae belongs to the superfamily Staphylinoidea, infraorder Staphyliniformia, suborder Polyphaga, and order Coleoptera. The genus Nicrophorus is hypothesized to have evolved in the Cretaceous Period approximately 99-127 million years ago and then undergone most of its speciation in the period approximately 40-60 million years ago. This was the period when the small-bodied vertebrates that these beetles use for carrion were also radiating.
One recent molecular phylogeny of the genus Nicrophorus placed N. pustulatus as the sister species to N. hispaniola.
“Nicrophorus pustulatus” enters the record as species of beetle. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Nicrophorus, pustulatus and species can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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The date and method of observation matter as much as the stated conclusion, especially where classification or consensus has changed. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 21, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q7030661. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1807.
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This entry incorporates text from “Nicrophorus pustulatus” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.