Dichotomius Hope, 1838 (Coleoptera: Scarabaeidae: Scarabaeinae) is a very abundant and diverse genus of dung beetles of the New World ecosystems, with about 190 species, distributed in four subgenera. Luederwaldt (Separata Rev Mus Paul 14: 3-13 1929) proposed the division of subgenera into sections (now species groups) based mainly on characters of external morphology. Based on Luederwaldt's proposal, progress has been made in recent years in the taxonomic revision of the genus; however, inconsistencies have been found in the subgeneric division and species groups proposed by this author.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFMegaceropsis Dechambre, 1976 (Coleoptera, Melolonthidae, Dynastinae, Oryctini) is a South American genus with two known species until now: Megaceropsis quadridentata Dechambre, 1976 and Megaceropsis lecourti Dechambre, 1996. We describe a third species herein: Megaceropsis kleytoni sp. nov.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFOver the past few years, insects have been used as samplers of vertebrate diversity by assessing the ingested-derived DNA (iDNA), and dung beetles have been shown to be a good mammal sampler given their broad feeding preference, wide distribution and easy sampling. Here, we tested and optimized the use of iDNA from dung beetles to assess the mammal community by evaluating if some biological and methodological aspects affect the use of dung beetles as mammal species samplers. We collected 403 dung beetles from 60 pitfall traps.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: The Amazon Forest is one of the world's most biodiverse ecosystems and yet its protected areas are understudied concerning insects and other invertebrates. These organisms are essential for tropical forests due to their ecological processes, with some species being very sensitive to habitat disturbances. Dung beetles (Coleoptera, Scarabaeidae, Scarabaeinae) have been used as bioindicators for more than 30 years and were surveyed to assess the insect biodiversity of two sustainable-use forest reserves in the Brazilian Amazon.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFSpecies relative abundance (SRA) is an essential attribute of biotic communities, which can provide an accurate description of community structure. However, the sampling method used may have a direct influence on SRA quantification, since the use of attractants (e.g.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThe taxonomic revision of the Dichotomius reclinatus species group (Coleoptera: Scarabaeidae: Scarabaeinae: Dichotomius Hope, 1838) sensu Arias-Buriticá and Vaz-de-Mello (2019) is presented. The group comprises four species previously included in the Dichotomius buqueti species group: Dichotomius horridus (Felsche, 1911) from Brazil, French Guiana, and Suriname; Dichotomius nimuendaju (Luederwaldt, 1925) from Bolivia, Brazil, and Peru; Dichotomius quadrinodosus (Felsche, 1901) from Brazil; and Dichotomius reclinatus (Felsche, 1901) from Colombia and Ecuador. A definition of the D.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFWe describe a new species of dung beetle, , from a single female specimen allegedly collected in the 19 century on Réunion island and recently found at the Muséum national d'Histoire naturelle, Paris. This species differs from other species of by larger size and a set of other distinctive morphological characters. is the first native dung beetle (Scarabaeinae) of Réunion, and its discovery expands the known area of distribution of the genus , which was hitherto believed to be endemic to Madagascar.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFDeltochilum Eschscholtz, 1822 is perhaps the most speciose genus of the tribe Deltochilini sensu Tarasov & Dimitrov (2016) (Scarabaeidae: Scarabaeinae) and has been traditionally divided into eight subgenera. Among them, the subgenus Deltohyboma Lane, 1946, is the most speciose with 47 species, five of which are described here (D. genieri sp.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThe taxa of the genus Kirby, 1825 (Coleoptera, Scarabaeidae, Dynastinae) related to (Jablonsky in Herbst, 1785) are revised. Megasoma (M.) gyas is recognized as a monotypic species restricted to the Caatinga biome of northeastern Brazil.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFIn the framework of the taxonomic revision of South American Sericini (Coleoptera: Scarabaeidae: Melolonthinae), we examined the type specimens of the species described by Burmeister (1855) in the genus Astaena Erichson, 1847. A few taxa resulted to not belong to the South American Sericini fauna, either due to different geographical provenience or due to incorrect systematical placement within Sericini. Two new combinations and one new synonymy are proposed: Neoserica pubescens (Burmeister, 1855), new combination (= Neoserica subsetosa Ahrens Fabrizi, 2016: 121, new synonymy) and Manonychus robustus (Burmeister, 1855), new combination.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFPeugeot-ONF Forest Carbon Sink Project, located at Fazenda São Nicolau (FSN) in Cotriguaçu Municipality, is a public-private initiative and has been supported by several French and Brazilian institutions. Its Research Program includes studies aiming Biodiversity Conservation, Ecology, Carbon Dynamics, Silvicultural Techniques. FSN comprises a high richness of species with more than 20 new species of beetles (Histeridae, Scarabaeidae e Melolonthidae) described among them one endemic genus.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThe Ecuadorian territory is divided into four natural regions: the coastal lowlands, the Andean highlands, the Amazon basin, and the Galapagos Islands. Each of these regions has its own ecosystems and specific vegetation. The purpose of this work is to compile an updated catalog of the Scarabaeinae (Coleoptera: Scarabaeidae) of Ecuador that includes distributional data and several nomenclatural acts.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFRewilding has been an increasingly popular tool to restore plant-animal interactions and ecological processes impaired by defaunation. However, the reestablishment of such processes has seldom been assessed. We investigated the restoration of ecological interactions following the reintroduction of the brown howler monkey (Alouatta guariba) to a defaunated Atlantic forest site.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFGuérin-Méneville, 1831 is the major genus of Neotropical Diplotaxini, with 78 species distributed from Panama to southern Argentina and Chile, except for Ecuador. Due to the large numbers of both described and undescribed species, as well as its agricultural importance, mainly of those in Brazil, was redefined and redescribed. Nine new species are described: Cherman, , Cherman, , Cherman, , Cherman, , Cherman, , Cherman, , Cherman, , Cherman, , and Cherman, All the new species are Brazilian, except for the last one, which is Argentinian.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThe Pantanal is one of the world's largest tropical wetland areas and harbors high mammal biomass. There is no formal list of dung beetle species, and studies on their functional roles have never being carried out in Pantanal. In this study, we identified dung beetle species occurring in the north Pantanal region (Poconé sub-region, Brazil) and studied their functional organization, by measuring morphological, behavioral and phenological traits.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThe Dichotomius sericeus species group of the subgenus Luederwaldtinia is reviewed. This group comprises eight species endemic to the South American Atlantic forests, Caatinga and associated areas of Brazil, Paraguay and Argentina: Dichotomius sericeus (Harold, 1867); Dichotomius irinus (Harold, 1867); Dichotomius laevicollis (Felsche, 1901); Dichotomius schiffleri Vaz-de-Mello, Gavino Louzada, 2001; Dichotomius guaribensis sp. nov.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFCurrently 13 species-group names assigned to the subgenus Megaphanaeus of Coprophanaeus are deemed available (or 'potentially available'), four of which denote valid species. In the present work we review the nomenclatural history of those names and conclude that two of them, Scarabaeus satelles Lichtenstein, 1796 and Copris ajax Sturm, 1826, are unavailable. For the other 11 names, we found type specimens of five, Scarabaeus bellicosus Olivier, 1789, Copris ensifer Germar, 1821, Phanaeus septentrionalis Pêssoa, 1934, P.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFDespite the increasing rate of systematic research on scarabaeine dung beetles (Coleoptera: Scarabaeidae: Scarabaeinae), their fossil record has remained largely unrevised. In this paper, we review all 33 named scarabaeine fossils and describe two new species from Dominican amber (Canthochilum alleni sp.n.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThis paper deals with taxonomic issues of the Dichotomius (Luederwaldtinia) batesi (Harold) species-group. We describe Dichotomius benesi n. sp.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFFive species groups of Dichotomius (Selenocopris) are defined and separated in an illustrated key in the first effective attempt of systematization of the subgenus. Four new brachypterous species of Selenocopris are described and the also brachypterous Dichotomius ingens (Luederwaldt) is redescribed. These species are diagnosed, illustrated and assigned to the quadraticeps species group.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThe Dichotomius assifer species-group, a component of Dichotomius (Luederwaldtinia) is taxonomically revised. The group now contains five species: D. angeloi sp.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFIt came to us from Svatopluk Pokorný a single Scarabaeinae specimen from Paraguay which we promptly diagnosed as belonging to the genus Holocephalus Hope, mainly due to the shape of first labial palpomere, head, cephalic carina, pronotum and other secondary charateristics (Smith & Génier 2001, Vaz-de-Mello et al. 2011). Comparisons with the diagnosis provided in the very fine and comprehensive revision of the genus (Smith & Génier 2001) and with specimens deposited at CEMT (Cuiabá-MT, Brazil) allowed us to confirm that this exemplar belongs to a new species of Holocephalus, which is described here.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFRecently, a new paper authored by two of us (Rossini & Vaz-de-Mello, 2015) addressed a taxonomic revision of Chalcocopris Burmeister, 1846, describing a second species for the genus and expanding our knowledge of its distribution and morphological diversity. In the present work, we address additional nomenclatural and historical issues not covered in that paper.
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