The Pseudanophthalmus of the Appalachian Valley (Coleoptera: Carabidae)

Abstract

Appalachian Pseudanophthalmus represent relict populations of epigean, endogenous ancestors which colonized caves during Pleistocene interglacials. Ancestral species were probably preadapted to cave life through acquisition of an endogenous habit and their requirement of a cool, moist, microenvironment; they may have undergone partial or total reduction of eyes and pigment before colonizing caves. The imbricated thrust faulting of the valley has produced numerous, comparatively small, discontinuous limestone areas in which cave beetle populations have become extrinsically isolated. Thirty species, in four species groups, are recognized, including thirteen species described as new. The HUBBARDI group (14 spp.) occupies caves in the Shenandoah, Potomac, New, Clinch, and Holston river valleys. The Pusio group (4 spp.) occupies caves in the James, Roanoke, and New river valleys. The HIRSUTUS group (4 spp.) occurs in caves in the drainage basins of the New, Clinch, and Powell rivers. The ENGELHARDTI group (8 spp.) inhabits caves in the drainage basin of the Tennessee River and its tributaries. Cave beetles of the genus Pseudanophthalmus Jeannel are widely distributed in limestone regions of the Appalachian Valley (=Valley and Ridge Province) of Virginia, West Virginia, Tennessee, and Alabama, as well as in the Interior Low Plateaus west of the Allegheny Plateau. George Horn (1868) described Anophthalmus pusio from specimens collected in Erhart's Cave, near Ellet Station, Montgomery Co., Virginia, by E. D. Cope. Sixty years later H. S. Barber (1928) described A. hubbardi from Luray Caverns, Page Co., Virginia, and A. engelhardti from English Cave, near Cumberland Gap, Claiborne Co., Tennessee. In 1928 and 1931, Jeannel transferred all three species to Pseudanophthalmus and described two additional subspecies of P. hubbardi. Most of our knowledge of Appalachian Pseudanophthalmus is the result of extensive studies by J. Manson Valentine (1931, 1932, 1937, 1945, 1948). Jeannel (1949) revised the genus and added new Appalachian species. Since 1949, taxonomic studies of Indiana, Kentucky, and Tennessee Pseudanophthalmus have been published by Krekeler (1958, 1959) and Barr (1959a, 1959b, 1960a, 1962a, 1962b), but none of these was directly concerned with Appalachian Valley species. At the present time there are 79 described species and subspecies of the genus, arrayed in 19 species groups. Four species groups occur in the Appalachian Valley. Twenty-one species and subspecies were previously recognized from the valley. In the present paper 13 species are described as new, one subspecies is relegated to synonymy, three sub1 This investigation was supported by grants from the Penrose Fund (No. 2413) of the American Philosophical Society and from the National Science Foundation (G-18765).