Abstract
Recent collecting efforts in the Neotropics have led to the discovery of numerous new species and lineages of aquatic beetles. Here, three new genera are described to accommodate fifteen new species of water scavenger beetles of the subfamily Acidocerinae from northern South America: Crucisternum gen. n. for C. escalera sp. n. (Venezuela), C. ouboteri sp. n. (Guyana, French Guiana, Suriname, Venezuela), C. queneyi sp. n. (French Guiana), C. sinuatus sp. n. (Brazil), C. toboganensis sp. n. (Venezuela), C. vanessae sp. n. (Suriname), and C. xingu sp. n. (Brazil); Katasophistes gen. n. for K. charynae sp. n. (Peru), K. cuzco sp. n. (Peru), K. merida sp. n. (Venezuela) and K. superficialis sp. n. (Ecuador); and Nanosaphes gen. n. for N. castaneus sp. n. (Brazil), N. hesperus sp. n. (Suriname), N. punctatus sp. n. (Guyana), and N. tricolor sp. n. (Guyana, Suriname). It was also found that the monotypic Neotropical endemic genus Dieroxenus Spangler, 1979, syn. n. is congeneric with Chasmogenus Sharp, 1882 resulting in the single new combination Chasmogenus cremnobates (Spangler, 1979), comb. n.. Katasophistes merida sp. n. is known exclusively from seepage habitats, while the remaining taxa described herein are primarily associated with the margins of densely forested streams. Diagnoses, illustrations, distribution maps, and habitat summaries are provided for all new genera and species. A key to the genera of Acidocerinae of the New World is provided.
Highlights
Recent fieldwork in northern South America has significantly expanded our knowledge of water beetle diversity, in terms of the number of species, and in illuminating the extraordinary diversity of habitats that they occupy (Short 2018)
Many new apparent forms of the water scavenger beetle subfamily Acidocerinae have been identified from a range of habitats from seepages to forest streams to savanna ponds
All specimen data which can be searched by species and/or collecting event are available online through the Collection Resources for Aquatic Coleoptera (CReAC) portal at http://creac.kubiodiversityinstitute.org/collections/
Summary
Recent fieldwork in northern South America has significantly expanded our knowledge of water beetle diversity, in terms of the number of species, and in illuminating the extraordinary diversity of habitats that they occupy (Short 2018). Many new apparent forms of the water scavenger beetle subfamily Acidocerinae have been identified from a range of habitats from seepages to forest streams to savanna ponds. The Acidocerinae presently contains 14 genera and about 300 species (Short and Fikáček 2011, 2013). They are distributed worldwide, most acidocerine species occur in tropical regions. We describe three of these new genera to accommodate fifteen new species from tropical South America. In the course of this work we discovered a new generic junior synonym, which we formally designate as well
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