Revision of the Nearctic species of the genus Iphthiminus Spilman (Coleoptera: Tenebrionidae)
Author
Gardiner, Rebekka M.
Author
Pollock, Darren A.
text
Zootaxa
2015
4048
3
352
391
journal article
10.11646/zootaxa.4048.3.2
1e57a999-9b24-4d55-95a5-38ef6339b008
1175-5326
238239
36E0B2C8-18AE-45AF-B371-BB1B582DF627
Taxonomy of
Iphthiminus
Before this revison, there were six recognized Nearctic species of
Iphthiminus
:
I. sublaevis
(Bland)
,
I. laevissimus
(Casey)
,
I. opacus
(Leconte)
,
I. serratus
(Mannerheim)
,
I
.
lewisii
(Horn)
, and
I. salebrosus
(Casey)
(
Poole & Gentili 1996
). According to
Horn (1870)
,
I. sublaevis
,
serratus
,
and
lewisii
were subspecies of
Ipthiminus
serratus
(
I. s. serratus
,
I. s. lewisii
, and
I. s. sublaevis
). No literature was found that gives explicit reason(s) why these subspecies were elevated to species status in recent catalogs. There are also three synonymies listed with
I. serratus
:
I. subligatus
,
I. servilis
,
I. servator
(Walker in
Lord 1866
,
Poole & Gentili 1996
).
Types
of these three Walker species were not examined for the present study (see the “taxonomic notes” section under
I
.
serratus
for details).
Iphthiminus sublaevis
was originally named
Nyctobates sublaevis
, described by
Bland (1865)
.
Iphthiminus laevissimus
and
I. salebrosus
were described by Thomas L.
Casey (1890
,
1924
), which made these names suspect due to his propensity to describe species without accounting for variation (
Capinera 2004
).