Revision of the New World species of Rhipidandrus (Coleoptera: Tenebrionidae)

Monday, November 14, 2022

8:48 AM – 9:00 AM PT

Location: Vancouver Convention Centre, Meeting Room 110

Presenting Author(s)

CR

Charla R. Replogle (they/them/theirs)

Graduate Research Assistant
Purdue University
West Lafayette, Indiana

Co-Author(s)

AS

Aaron D. Smith

Assistant Professor
Purdue University
West Lafayette, Indiana

Rhipidandrus is a cosmopolitan genus of fungus-associated darkling beetles (Coleoptera: Tenebrionidae), containing 22 presently-valid species, of which the 10 Old World species were previously revised. We present the first comprehensive taxonomic revision of the 12 Nearctic and Neotropical species of Rhipidandrus based on examination of all extant types and over 600 additional specimens. A suite of morphological characters were scored and used to generate matrix-based descriptions, an interactive key to species, and a Maximum Parsimony phylogeny for the group. The resulting taxonomic changes, species distributions, and diagnostic morphological characters will also be discussed.