Eleothinus Bates, 1881

(Figs. 21–22)

Eleothinus Bates, 1881: 154 .

Type species — Eleothinus abstrusus Bates, 1881 (subsequent designation, Monné, 1995: 104).

Diagnosis. Body elongated-oval. Elytra with apex truncate, with outer angle projected; surface carinate, with several tufts of setae. Prosternal process and mesoventral process wide. Femora clavate. Number of species currently included (all in Central America): 3.

Remarks. The three species currently included in Eleothinus, apparently, belong to at least two different genera. Eleothinus longulus Bates, 1881, distinctly differs from the species of Leptostylous and Leptostylopsis by the body distinctly slender, but the features pointed out by Bates (1881) to separate the type species, E. abstrusus Bates, 1881, are questionable (the shape and number of the pronotal tubercles are variable in Leptostylus). The third species, E. pygmaeus Bates, 1885, has the apex of the prothoracic lateral tubercles distinctly acute and projected backward, which suggests it belong to a genus different from Eleothinus, Leptostylus and Leptostylopsis .