Paxillus MacLeay, 1819

Mattos, Ingrid & Mermudes, José Ricardo M., 2013, Synopsis of Paxillus MacLeay, 1819 (Coleoptera: Passalidae): distributional records and descriptions of four new species from Brazil, Zootaxa 3652 (3), pp. 327-342 : 328-329

Paxillus MacLeay, 1819

Paxillus MacLeay, 1819: 105 ; Fonseca & Reyes-Castillo, 2004: 12 (list).

Type species. Paxillus leachi MacLeay, 1819 , subsequently designated by Gravely (1918: 48).

Diagnosis. Maximum length 30 mm. Body flattened. Lateral frontal tubercles generally more developed and never merged with external angles of frontal area and distinctly separated from these. Lacinia unidentate. Antennal club with five lamellate antennomeres; scape with shallow depression with sparse setae. Pronotum with anterior marginal grooves short, reaching only ¼ or ½ of pronotal width, normally narrowed. Prosternal process pentagonal after procoxae, large and flattened, with subparallel side, never convergent to apex; apical margin evident and broadly truncated. Disc of metasternum laterally marked, with punctures in lateral area of metasternum. Profemora lacking marginal groove on ventral side near anterior margin.

Habitat. Subcortical species.

Remarks. Paxillus is usually misidentified as Spasalus , because of the antennal club with five antennomeres. It differs from Spasalus and also from some species of Passalus with a five-antennomere antennal club by characters in the diagnosis above. In Spasalus , the prosternal process is romboidal after the procoxae, never pentagonal, with moderately broad, convergent sides to the apex, apex narrow and round to truncate; the profemora with a marginal groove on the ventral face near the anterior margin; and the pronotum with the anterior marginal groove elongate, reaching ½ of the pronotal width. In Passalus the lacinia is always bidentate; the prosternal process is romboidal, the protibiae are not enlarged, the mesotibiae and metatibiae have apical spines that are similar in size, and the hypostomal process long and separated from the labium.