Center for Systematic Entomology, Gainesville, Florida
ORCID IDs
Jiří Háva https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8076-9538
Date of this Version
6-25-2021
Citation
Háva J, Herrmann A. 2021. Checklist of Dermestidae (Insecta: Coleoptera: Bostrichoidea) of the United States. Insecta Mundi 0871: 1–16.
Abstract
A checklist of Dermestidae (Coleoptera: Bostrichoidea) of the United States of America is provided. It comprises 171 valid species belonging to 25 different genera, also 6 fossil species and 41 new state records.
Dermestidae is a family of Coleoptera which is commonly referred to as skin beetles. Other common names include larder beetle, hide or leather beetles, carpet beetles, and khapra beetles. There are approximately 1705 species worldwide (Háva 2015a, 2020). The last checklist of the dermestid species occurring in the Nearctic region (Canada and U.S.A.) was published by Beal (2003), with exception of the Hawaiian Islands. However, he had conducted studies on the Hawaiian Dermestidae a few years earlier (Beal 1991, 2000). A checklist of beetles from Canada including Alaska was recently published (Bousquet et al. 2013), a checklist of Rhode and Block Islands was published by Sikes (2002, 2003, 2004) and currently several records were actualized by the “World Catalogue of Dermestidae” (Háva 2015a, 2020). In order to continue at least partly the great and impressive work of Beal we herewith provide an actual checklist as an overview about the dermestid fauna of the U.S.A. It goes without saying that such an overview depends much on the co-operation with the owners and curators of the relevant entomological collections, and fortunately most of them have helped us in a very friendly and generous way. Nevertheless, all such lists will become outdated the day after publishing, therefore we intend to update the checklist in frequent articles of a series titled “New faunistic records and remarks on Dermestidae (Coleoptera)”. For this aim, any faunistic additions or corrections would be very welcome to us, as well as any comments, and contacts in this respect. Additionally, we want to point out that some records are based only on stock lists provided by collections, e.g. by an online list provided on a museum’s homepage. In such cases not all specimens could be checked by us. The present checklist comprises 171 valid species belonging to 25 different genera (Fig. 1), and also includes six fossil species and 41 new state records (Table 1).
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 June 25, 2021 by Center for Systematic Entomology, Inc. P.O. Box 141874 Gainesville, FL 32614-1874 USA http://centerforsystematicentomology.org/