Professor University of Tennessee Chattanooga, Tennessee
Rove beetles (Coleoptera: Staphylinidae) represent one of nature's megaradiation with more than 65,000 species described. Most are rather small tend to lack fancy coloration. Unlike most rove beetles, Xanthopygina (in the tribe Staphylinini) rove beetles are large colorful insects with a neotropical distribution. In this talk I am attempting to explain the origin of this coloration by discussing functional and historical explanations. An ancestral states reconstruction analysis of the coloration of head, pronotum, elytra and abdomen offers several hints about the origin of iridescence and pigmentation coloration on a hypothetical ancestor of xanthopygine rove beetles.
