Taxonomic Revision of the Neotropical Tiger Beetle Genera of the Subtribe Odontocheilina (Coleoptera: Cicindelidae), Volume 1

About this book

Language: English, with bilingual summary in English and Spanish

The first part of the complete taxonomic and nomenclatorial revision of the 15 Neotropical genera of the newly defined beetle subtribe Odontocheilina W. Horn, 1899 sensu Moravec (2012a) is presented as Volume 1. The results are based on a thorough examination of relevant type specimens and more than seven thousand other specimens. In this first part of the revision, 87 species are recognized as members of the following three genera: Odontocheila Laporte de Castelnau, 1834 (78 species, 1 subspecies), Cenothyla Rivalier, 1969 (7 species) and Phyllodroma Lacordaire,1842 (2 species).

The infrageneric arrangement of the largest genus Odontocheila proposed by Rivalier (1969), who subdivided the genus into five species-groups, is considerably reassessed here according to more accurate diagnostic characters and also because the number of species has considerably increased. Consequently, the genus Odontocheila is subdivided here into nine species-groups. Keys to species of these three genera and to species-groups of Odontocheila are presented, as well as a preliminary key to all the genera of the Odontocheilina subtribe, including other 12 genera which are subject of Volume 2, where the previously subgenera of Pentacomia Bates, 1872 are treated as separate genera, formally elevated to their generic level by Moravec & Huber (2015) and Moravec (2018).

The introductory part comprises chapters on material and methods, biology and distribution, brief remarks on phylogeny and developmental stages (known in several species only), and illustrative explanation of important diagnostic characters and variability. Redescriptions, differential diagnoses and keys to species are provided in the taxonomic part. Lectotype designations are given in relevant taxa, and a neotype of one species is designated. Each species is illustrated from type specimens and other accessible material, with colour photographs of the habitus, diagnostic characters and variability. The distribution, biology and the behaviour of adults (if known) are treated with specifications of the localities (whenever known) and with simplified maps of the distribution.

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Biography

Jiří Moravec (born 1942) was born in Mladá Boleslav, Czech Republic and lives in Adamov near Brno. Jiří is a well-known mycologist and entomologist. In mycology, he is a renowned specialist in the taxonomy of Ascomycetes and he has published a great number of scientific papers and a large monograph and discovered and described many new taxa of these fungi.

In entomology, he has been working on the taxonomy of Cicindelidae for over 40 years and has published a number of taxonomic papers and books. After his comprehensive taxonomic and nomenclatorial revisions which resulted in three voluminous books titled A Monograph of the Genus Physodeutera, A Monograph of the Genus Pogonostoma and Tiger Beetles of the Madagascan Region, his research has been focused primarily on Neotropical tiger beetle genera of the subtribe Odontocheilina W. Horn, 1899 (sensu Moravec 2012). Jiří has published a series of papers on the taxonomy of these genera, some of them jointly with his colleagues. The papers comprised significant taxonomic and nomenclatorial changes and descriptions of new species made available before the completion of the concluding two publications on the subtribe.