<p><strong>A new species of <em>Paleoendeitoma </em>(Coleoptera: Zopheridae: Colydiinae)<em> </em>from mid-Cretaceous Burmese amber</strong></p>

Abstract

Cylindrical bark beetles (subfamily Colydiinae) have a long and convoluted taxonomic history which has led to much confusion in their nomenclature and phylogeny (summarized in Ivie et al., 2016). In the past they have been treated as a separate family within the superfamily Tenebrionoidea. However, taxonomic studies have placed them as sister to the Zopherinae within the Zopheridae (Ślipiński & Lawrence, 1999). Phylogenetic analyses are inconclusive on this relationship with some supporting (McKenna et al., 2019) and others providing evidence against (Hunt et al., 2007; McKenna et al., 2015; McKenna et al., 2019) this hypothesis (although low taxon sampling may play a role in this discordance). Even the monophyly of the Colydiinae within the Zopheridae is suspect (Lawrence et al., 2011; Ivie et al., 2016) as they possess no convincing morphological synapomorphies. The tribe Synchitini in particular is the largest in the Colydiinae with 115 genera of mainly mycophagous or detritivorous beetles inhabiting rotting wood, under bark, or leaf-litter habitats (Ivie, 2002). This tribe may be paraphyletic with respect to the other colydiine tribes, and as with the broader subfamily, requires much phylogenetic work to clarify these relationships (Ivie, 2002).