Cillenus Samouelle, 1819

Toledano, Luca, 2009, Notes on the Bembidiina of Taiwan with description of three new species (Coleoptera: Carabidae), Acta Entomologica Musei Nationalis Pragae 49 (2), pp. 577-598 : 579

Cillenus Samouelle, 1819 complex

Systematic notes. According to MARGGI et al. (2003) and LORENZ (2005), the subgenera of the Cillenus complex belong to the genus Cillenus Samouelle, 1819 . This classification is based on the extreme difference in habitus of this complex of subgenera from the other species of the genus Bembidion . Also the habitat of these species is unusual for the Bembidiina , because they live on sea shores and probably feed on amphipods ( LINDROTH 1980). However, as I explained elsewhere ( TOLEDANO 2005), even though the subgenera of the Cillenus complex are certainly closely related and their body shape is extremely different from the other subgenera of Bembidion , the structure of their male genitalia seems to suggest that they actually belong to the genus Bembidion and that their peculiar body shape is probably due to an adaptation to the seashore environment. Therefore I still follow LINDROTH (1980) until better evidence emerges to elevate the Cillenus complex to the generic level.

Bembidion formosanum Dupuis, 1912 and B. sauteri Jedlička, 1954 are at present included in the subgenus Armatocillenus Dupuis, 1912 . TERADA et al. (2005) and TERADA (2006) use this name as a valid genus, but I prefer not to follow that arrangement here for the same reasons as explained above for Cillenus . I think that most subgeneric names of Oriental “ Cillenus - like” species should be synonymized because they share the main structure of the endophallus ( LINDROTH 1980). In any case, any decisions regarding the generic validity of the taxon Cillenus should be addressed in a revision of the phylogenetic relationships of all the known species of the group. Since this is not the goal of this paper, B. formosanum and B. sauteri are provisionally kept in Armatocillenus , which is regarded as a subgenus of Bembidion .