Revision and phylogenetic assessment of the rove beetle genus Pseudohesperus Hayashi, with broad reference to the subtribe Philonthina (Coleoptera: Staphylinidae: Staphylinini)
Author
Li, Liang
Author
Zhou, Hong-Zhang
text
Zoological Journal of the Linnean Society
2011
2011-10-25
163
3
679
722
http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.1096-3642.2011.00731.x
journal article
10.1111/j.1096-3642.2011.00731.x
0024-4082
5442095
THE GENUS
AGACERUS
AND ITS ALLIES
The phylogenetic analysis revealed the Oriental genus
Agacerus
Fauvel, 1895
and the African genus
Moeocerus
Fauvel, 1899
to be sister groups, and together they were sister to the African genus
Glyphesthus
Kraatz, 1858
. These relationships were supported by high support scores and were consistent with the recent study based on more limited taxa sampling of
Philonthina
by
Solodovnikov & Schomann (2009)
. The genus
Taxiplagus
Bernhauer, 1915
(=
Prionophilonthus
Scheerpeltz, 1974
, =
Quediosoma
Cameron, 1926
), also reported to occur in the Ethiopian region (
Smetana, 2004
), appeared as closely related to
Agacerus
,
Moeocerus
, and
Glyphesthus
in the present analysis, but with low support values. Morphologically, the character states that
Taxiplagus
shares with
Agacerus
,
Moeocerus
, and
Glyphesthus
are those related to the shape of the pronotal hypomeron and mesoventrite. However, many other character states including arrangement of antennal pubescence, shape of mouthparts, elytral sub-basal ridge, and posterior margin of sternites VIāVIII are completely different. The close relationship of
Taxiplagus
and
Agacerus
,
Moeocerus
, and
Glyphesthus
is thus only tentative, as we examined only a single representative of
Taxiplagus
from the Oriental region.