A new apterous rove beetle genus (Coleoptera: Staphylinidae) from the Northern Andes with an assessment of its phylogenetic position

Stylianos Chatzimanolis,Adam J Brunke

doi:10.5852/ejt.2021.744.1303

Stylianos Chatzimanolis, Adam J Brunke

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.5852/ejt.2021.744.1303

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Abstract

A remarkable new apterous genus of Xanthopygina beetles is described here as Ikaros gen. nov. The new genus includes three new species, I. apteros gen. et sp. nov. from Colombia, I. paramo gen. et sp. nov. from Colombia and I. polygonos gen. et sp. nov. from Venezuela. Phylogenetic analyses using molecular and morphological data were performed to assess the phylogenetic position of Ikaros gen. nov. and whether the three new taxa formed a monophyletic group. All analyses, including those with aptery-associated characters removed, strongly supported the monophyly of Ikaros gen. nov. The genus could not be confidently resolved as a member of any of the existing genus-group lineages, likely due to a lack of morphological signal in the backbone of the tree. Further analyses, ideally with molecular data, are needed to determine the position of Ikaros gen. nov.

Highlights

The subtribe Xanthopygina Sharp, 1884 is a group of 30 neotropical genera in the rove beetle tribe Staphylinini Latreille, 1802
We recently discovered three Xanthopygina taxa in museum collections that look nothing like a typical xanthopygine: they are dull brown, have short elytra and completely lack hind wings
Within Ikaros gen. nov., I. polygonos gen. et sp. nov. was always resolved as the sister group to I. apteros gen. et sp. nov. + I. paramo gen. et sp. nov., though without support (PP = 0.75 and SH-aLRT = 78, ultrafast bootstrap (UFB) = 87)

Summary

Introduction

The subtribe Xanthopygina Sharp, 1884 is a group of 30 neotropical genera in the rove beetle tribe Staphylinini Latreille, 1802. Xanthopygina are atypical within the family because they break the mould of ‘little brown rove beetles’: they have bright metallic colorations and they are frequently over 2 cm long (Chatzimanolis 2014). We recently discovered three Xanthopygina taxa in museum collections that look nothing like a typical xanthopygine: they are dull brown, have short elytra and completely lack hind wings. To our knowledge, these taxa are the only known apterous Xanthopygina rove beetles. While apterous rove beetles are not necessarily rare (e.g., Peng et al 2013; Puthz 2015; Schomann & Solodovnikov 2016; Clarke 2018; Bordoni 2020), there are few published reports of apterous Staphylinini (sec Żyła & Solodovnikov 2020) rove beetles (Smetana 1995) but flightless species have evolved in all subtribes of Staphylinini (Brunke pers. obs.)

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