Center for Systematic Entomology, Gainesville, Florida

 

Date of this Version

2-26-2021

Citation

Warner WB. 2021. A brief review of the New World Xestipyge Marseul (Coleoptera: Histeridae: Dendrophilinae: Paromalini) with description of a new species from the southwestern USA. Insecta Mundi 0854: 1–12.

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,

Abstract

New World species of the histerid beetle genus Xestipyge Marseul (Coleoptera: Histeridae: Dendrophilinae: Paromalini) are reviewed, and X. skelleyi, new species, is described. A dichotomous key and illustrations are provided as identification means for the now five included species from the Western Hemisphere.

Xestipyge was erected by Marseul (1862) as a monotypic subgenus of his genus Carcinops for “Carcinops radula Marseul” because of its unusual elytral striae, with fourth dorsal stria arched over the fifth dorsal stria and con­necting to the sutural (= sixth dorsal) stria. Lewis elevated Xestipyge to generic status in 1905. In addition to the different elytral strial arrangement, most Xestipyge species (including all those known from the New World) have unusual ground punctures consisting of mostly transverse groups of 2–5 (usually 3) micropunctures (e.g., Fig. 4), and males have the ventral protarsal setae enlarged and spatulate somewhat similar to males of many Saprininae histerids. The unusual microsculpture of Xestipyge adults is shared by specimens of Carcinops subgenus Carci­nopsida Casey, currently comprising four described species of which two were considered valid by Reese and Swanson (2017); however, C. (Carcinopsida) species lack the elytral strial and male protarsal characters of Xesti­pyge species. Microsculpture in the several dozen species forming the much larger nominate subgenus Carcinops consists of discrete, single micropunctures. Xestipyge species are not numerous, and Mazur (2011) lists only four species from the New World. Com­pared to many other Paromalini groups, Xestipyge species are relatively distinctive from one another, differing both in external sculpture and in the shape of the male genitalia, especially the parameres in males. This brief review provides a description of a new species from the southwestern USA, along with illustrations of it and the other four described species from the Western Hemisphere.

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