| Ptiliidae Temporal range:
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| Ptenidium pusillum | |
Scientific classification 
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| Domain: | Eukaryota |
| Kingdom: | Animalia |
| Phylum: | Arthropoda |
| Class: | Insecta |
| Order: | Coleoptera |
| Suborder: | Polyphaga |
| Infraorder: | Staphyliniformia |
| Superfamily: | Staphylinoidea |
| Family: | Ptiliidae Erichson, 1845[1] |
| Subfamilies | |
| Synonyms | |
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Ptiliidae is a family of very tiny beetles (including the smallest of all beetles) with a cosmopolitan distribution. They are colloquially called featherwing beetles, because the hindwings are narrow and feathery.[2]
There are approximately 600 described species in 80 genera,[2] but large numbers of specimens in collections await description and the true number of species is likely to be much higher than this.[3]
The family is divided into 3 subfamilies:[2]
- ^ Bouchard, Patrice; Bousquet, Yves; Davies, Anthony E.; Alonso-Zarazaga, Miguel A.; Lawrence, John F.; Lyal, Chris H. C.; Newton, Alfred F.; Reid, Chris A. M.; Schmitt, Michael; Ślipiński, S. Adam; Smith, Andrew B. T. (2011). "Family-group names in Coleoptera (Insecta)". ZooKeys (88): 1–972. Bibcode:2011ZooK...88....1B. doi:10.3897/zookeys.88.807. PMC 3088472. PMID 21594053.
- ^ a b c Christopher G. Mayka & Mikael Sörensson (2010). "Featherwing beetles (Coleoptera: Ptiliidae)". In Donald F. McAlpine & Ian M. Smith (ed.). Assessment of Species Diversity in the Atlantic Maritime Ecozone. NRC Research Press. pp. 433–438. ISBN 9780660198354.
- ^ Henry S. Dybas (2000). "Featherwing beetles". DPI Entomology Circular. 218. University of Florida. EENY-177. Retrieved October 22, 2013.