Taxonomic revision of the South American genus Polynoncus Burmeister, 1876 (Coleoptera: Scarabaeoidea: Trogidae)

ABSTRACT

The South American genus Polynoncus Burmeister encompasses 38 valid species that are considered to be endemic to South America. In this work, we provide a comprehensive revision of this genus. Polynoncus seymourensis (Mutchler, 1925) with only insular occurrence (Galapagos Islands) is now recorded for the continent. We describe Polynoncus pseudogemmifer sp. n. from Argentina to accommodate a species previously considered as ‘P. gemmifer’. Polynoncus furcillifer Pittino 1987 and P. argentinus (Harold, 1872) are both reinstated as valid species, and P. haafi (Vaurie 1962) is synonymised with P. gemmifer (Blanchard, 1847). Lectotypes are designated for the following names: Trox hemisphaericus Burmeister, 1876, T. pampeanus Burmeister, 1876, T. gemmiferus Blanchard, 1847, T. gemmifer Blanchard, 1847, T. leprosus Blanchard, 1847, T. argentinus Harold, 1872, T. gemmingeri Harold, 1872, T. pedestris Harold, 1872 and T. globulatus Fairmaire, 1884. We provide high-quality images of the type specimens and their labels, a differential diagnosis, synonyms, chresonomy and known geographical distributions. A key for the accurate identification of species of Polynoncus is given.

http://www.zoobank.org/urn:lsid:zoobank.org:pub:3EB21F01-C5DA-4100-B7DB-81AEFD54C99E

KEYWORDS:

• Omorginae
• identification key
• Neotropical region
• taxonomy
• South America
• keratin feeding

Acknowledgements

We are grateful to Rafael Sobral (INPA), Alberto Ballerio (Milan, Italy), Riccardo Pittino, Rafael Souza (MZSP), Luis Compagnucci (MACN), Rachael Diaz-Bastin (CASC), Marina Fuentes (MZUC), Keita Matsumoto (BMNH), Karolyn Darrow (USNM), Eliana Buenaventura (ZMUC), Emília Perez (IFML), Marcelo Guerrero (Santiago, Chile) and Christophe Rivier (MNHN) for providing some of the photographs of type specimens housed in their respective institutions. A special thanks to Andrew Smith for all his kindness and help with the CMNC material. We also thank all the collection curators mentioned in the Materials and methods section. VCS thanks Dr Thadeu Sobral-Souza (Universidade Federal de Mato Grosso) for his help with the map modeling of Polynoncus spp. A special thanks to Manuel Diéguez and Gerardo Arriagada for their kindness and hospitality during the visit of VCS to Chile. VCS thanks the Ernst Mayer Grants (Harvard University) for the financial support to visit the Muséum National d’Histoire Naturelle (Paris) and British Museum of Natural History (London). VCS also thanks UNICAMP for providing the license to use the software ArcGIS (process no. 20-P-21727 / 2021 / Contract no. 161 / 2021). FZVM thanks the National Council for Scientific and Technological Development (CNPq), process numbers 431760 / 2018-7, 306745 / 2016-0, 248299 / 2012-3. Project SISGEN no. A97BAB4. All authors thanks the Subprojeto EECBio UFMT/Finep no. 01.12.0359.00. The authors also thank the Editor (Andrew Polaszek, Editor in Chief), David Krél (Charles University, Czech Republic), Jean-Bernard Huchet (Musáum national d’Histoire naturelle, France), and the anonymous reviewer for providing helpful comments and suggestions that significantly improved the manuscript.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior [88882.435386 / 2019-01].