Leptocyphon Zwick, 2015b

Zwick, Peter, 2016, Australian Marsh Beetles (Coleoptera: Scirtidae). 9. The relations of Australasian Ypsiloncyphon species to their Asian congeners, additions, mainly to Petrocyphon and Prionocyphon, and a key to Australian genera of Scirtinae, Zootaxa 4085 (2), pp. 151-198 : 190

Genus Leptocyphon Zwick, 2015b

The new species named below is one of three similar-looking small marsh beetles from western and northern Australia which fit nowhere. The male genitalia of each is uniquely modified, and none of them resembles any known species. In habitus, they resemble some Pseudomicrocara -species but two of them have small pronotal pits, like members of the genus Heterocyphon Armstrong. However , in other characters, Heterocyphon is uniform and clearly different ( Zwick 2015b: 479).

In contrast, the genus Pseudomicrocara is probably not monophyletic ( Watts 2009; Cooper et al. 2015), since a synapomorphy is not known. The group is presently under revision (Watts, personal communication). For the time being, one has to compare with the type species, P. orientalis Armstrong. The two western species, which happened to become known first, have a reduced prosternal process and mesoventral groove which differs much from P. orientalis ( Zwick 2015b: 481) . They were placed in a new genus, Leptocyphon , albeit with hesitation.

The new species is tentatively assigned to Leptocyphon . It has pronotal pits, but although its prosternal process and mesoventral groove are small they are not significantly altered. The tegmen and penis cannot not be recognized as such by their structure, but I identified them from their relative position.