Ptomaphagus Hellwig

Peck, Stewart B., Gnaspini, Pedro & Newton, Alfred F., 2020, Updated catalog and generic keys of the Leiodidae (Insecta: Coleoptera) of the Neotropical region (“ Latin America ”: Mexico, the West Indies, and Central and South America), Zootaxa 4741 (1), pp. 1-114 : 56

Genus Ptomaphagus Hellwig

Ptomaphagus Hellwig, 1795: 358 (attributed to Knoch); Jeannel, 1936: 67 (redescription). Type species: Tritoma sericea Fabricius (= Ptomaphagus subvillosus (Goeze)) (monotypy).

= Ptomaphagus Illiger, 1798: 84 (attributed to Knoch) (preoccupied, junior homonym of Ptomaphagus Hellwig ). Type species: Helops sericeus Panzer, 1801 (= P. subvillosus (Goeze) (des. Thomson, 1859: 60),

=Ptomatophagus Agassiz, 1846: 316 (unjustified emendation of Ptomaphagus ).

= Ptomophagus ; Burgos-Solorio & Trejo-Loyo, 2001: 91 (misspelling, nomen nudum—see Note 4); Zaragoza-Caballero et al., 2019: 31 (misspelling—see Note 4).

Note 1: The genus was previously attributed to Illiger, 1798: 84 (by Peck et al., 1998a: 63; and also in Newton, 1998: 131, by citing Jeannel, 1911: 193 and Hatch, 1928: 164), but corrected in Newton, 1998: 132. The subgenera may not be valid clades ( Peck et al., 1998a: 63 – 64).

Note 2: See note about synonymy between Ptomaphagus and Adelopsis under genus Adelopsis , above.

Note 3:—in error: Pic, 1913: 9 described “ Ptomaphagus rufiventris ” from Cuba. Jeannel, 1936: synonymized it under Ptomaphagus (Ptomaphagus) subvillosus Goeze [1777] , an European species, and commented that he could be sure of the synonymy after dissection and analysis of the male holotype, indeed with a label “ Cuba ”, and he concluded that it was probably due to an error of locality in the label.

Note 4:—in error (misspelling and nomen nudum): Burgos-Solorio & Trejo-Loyo (2001: 91), and reproduced in Zaragoza-Caballero et al. (2019: 31), listed (for Morelos State, Mexico) the “taxon” “ Ptomophagus [sic] navarretei Gynaspini [sic], 1999”, which is here considered a nomen nudum. This combination has never been proposed in the literature, and we interpret that it refers to Dissochaetus navarretei Gnaspini, 1999 , which was indeed described for Morelos State, Mexico (see under that genus, in this catalog), but belongs in a different genus, of a different tribe.

Yet, Zaragoza-Caballero et al. (2019: 31) uses the same misspelling for “ Ptomophagus [sic] (Adelops) altus Peck, 1973 ”, also referring to Burgos-Solorio & Trejo-Loyo (2001: 91), in which the genus name is spelled correctly.

Distribution: 132 species—Holarctic and Neotropical (in subgenera Adelops and Tupania ).

Biology: Scavengers in moist forests, some are in animal burrows or nests, or caves (as troglophiles and troglobites).