Center for Systematic Entomology, Gainesville, Florida
Date of this Version
12-25-2020
Citation
Opitz W. 2020. Three new species of South American checkered beetles (Coleoptera: Cleridae: Clerinae). Insecta Mundi 0832: 1–5.
Michael C. Thomas Festschrift Contribution
Abstract
Three new species of Enoclerus Gahan (Coleoptera: Cleridae) are described and illustrated. They are: Enoclerus minas Opitz from Colombia and Brazil, E. salta Opitz from Argentina, and E. thomasi Opitz from Bolivia.
Corporaal (1950: 14) lists 185 species of Enoclerus Gahan (Coleoptera: Cleridae: Clerinae). I know of over 60 undescribed species. It is a daunting task to organize such a high number of species into some sort of taxonomic revision, which cannot be provided at this time. However, some of these new species can be described that will be added to a larger work at a later date. Such descriptive efforts may involve species comparisons at the faunal level. Opitz (2005:112) defined major faunal regions for South America which are referenced here. Each of the three new species described here possess character combinations that are unique to the fauna in the region they occur. This contribution is dedicated to the memory of Michael C. Thomas. Mike always found the time to help colleagues with his immense knowledge of computer programs. He was a superb taxonomist, especially in his dealings with the micro-coleoptera. His artistic skills are well known and documented in his publications.
Comments
Copyright held by the author(s). This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons, Attribution Non-Commercial License
Published on December 25, 2020 by Center for Systematic Entomology, Inc. P.O. Box 141874 Gainesville, FL 32614-1874 USA http://centerforsystematicentomology.org/