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Erotylus

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Erotylus
Erotylus giganteus, the type species of Erotylus
Scientific classification Edit this classification
Kingdom: Animalia
Phylum: Arthropoda
Clade: Pancrustacea
Class: Insecta
Order: Coleoptera
Suborder: Polyphaga
Infraorder: Cucujiformia
Family: Erotylidae
Genus: Erotylus
Fabricius, 1775
Type species
Coccinella gigantea
Linnaeus, 1758
Synonyms

Pseudochrysomela Voet, 1806 (unavailable)

Erotylus is a genus in the pleasing fungus beetle family (Erotylidae). This neotropical genus belongs to the subfamily Erotylinae, of which it is the type genus.[1][2]

Most of the roughly 100 species of Erotylus are found in the Amazon Basin. Some occur in the eastern Andes foothills, and a few are found in Central America north to Honduras.[3] The occasional reports further north are probably introduced individuals.[1]

Description

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Erotylus beetles are large by their family's standards, around 15-25 mm (0.6-1 in) long and 6-17 mm wide as adults. They have a plump body, with large but not outsized antennae and legs. The compound eyes have small ommatidia, and the snout is square-shaped and narrowed at the base. Their 11-segmented antennae have a "club" at the tip in which the segments are still distinctly visible. The end segments of the maxillary palps are wider than long, the maxillary lacinia bear two small teeth, and the mouth-cavity sides are flattened lobes. The thorax is large and wide, lacks a distinct margin at the base (unlike in the close relative Cypherotylus), and the surface of the pronotum is conspicously dimpled (usually but not always much more so than in the relative Prepopharus). The elytra have a blunt teardrop shape when the wings are closed, and the first three segments of the tarsi are increasingly widened. However, it must be noted that these traits also apply to the close relative Erotylina[3] (which historically was included in Erotylus).[4]

Nomenclature

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Early 18th-century authors usually placed these beetles in a genus named Pseudochrysomela after a description by Johann Voet. This is sometimes cited with the year 1788, the release of Voet's first Catalogus Systematicus Coleopterorum, but was actually only published in the second posthumous volume in 1806. Either way, even though Voet already preferred two-word names instead of the older descriptive ones, his nomenclature was still using pre-Linnean names while looking deceptively Linnean. This confused many subsequent authors, until all of Voet's names were decided to be unavailable under ICZN rules. In the course of clarifying this situation, the type species of Voet's Pseudochrysomela was declared to be P.paramariboensis – another unavailable name, but referring to the same species as Linnaeus' Coccinella gigantea, validly described in 1758 already. Frederick Hope in 1841 declared C.gigantea the type species of Johann Fabricius' 1775 genus Erotylus, making Pseudochrysomela redundant and limiting the practical consequences of its invalidity.[5]

The genus name Pseudochrysomela was re-established validly in 1925 by Maurice Pic, for a new genus of darkling beetles (family Tenebrionidae) which is today placed in the tribe Cnodalonini of subfamily Stenochiinae.

Species

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Erotylus dilaceratus
Erotylus spectrum
Erotylus taeniatus or a close relative
Erotylus variomaculatus
Erotylus voeti

The following species are placed here:[3][6][7]

In addition, most of the large, well-rounded and conspicuous pleasing fungus beetles – as well as some others, such as Triplax species – described before the mid-18th century were at first placed into Erotylus. As their distinctness from E.giganteus and its closest relatives became clear, they were moved to other genera – mostly Erotylinae such as Aegithus, Barytopus, Erotylina, Iphiclus or Prepopharus. The identity of "Erotylus sexfasciatus", described by Fabricius in 1792, is still unresolved.[3]

Another supposed member of this genus, "E.flavipes", described from Jamaica by Fabricius in 1781, turned out to be the leaf beetle Colaspis occidentalis described by Linnaeus in 1758.[8]

It is also likely that undescribed Erotylus species exist. A review of the UPN collection found 5 identifiable species represented among the 34 Erotylus specimens, with most occurring in the Andes but some in the eastern lowlands of Colombia, and the upland species E.taeniatus markedly more commonly and widely found than the others. But almost two-thirds of the Erotylus in this collection (22 specimens) could not be assigned to a species known from the region. These include collections from the uplands and both slopes of the Andes.[9]

References

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  1. 1 2 "Erotylus Fabricius, 1775". Global Biodiversity Information Facility. Retrieved June 10, 2026.
  2. ↑ "Genus Erotylus". iNaturalist. Retrieved June 10, 2026.
  3. 1 2 3 4 Alvarenga, Moacyr (1994): Catálogo dos Erotylidae (Coleoptera) Neotropicais. [Catalogue of Neotropical Erotylidae (Coleoptera). Portuguese with English abstract.] Revista Brasileira de Zoologia 11(1): 1-175. doi:10.1590/S0101-81751994000100001.
  4. ↑ Deelder, C.L. (1942): Revision of the Erotylidae (Coleoptera) of the Leiden Museum. Zool. Meded. 24(3): 49-115. Fulltext
  5. ↑ Skelley, Paul E. (2020): Nomenclatural notes for the Erotylinae (Coleoptera: Erotylidae). Insect. Mund. 0767: 1–35. PDF fulltxt
  6. ↑ Biolib
  7. ↑ P. Węgrzynowicz. (2002) "Morphology, phylogeny and classification of the family Erotylidae based on adult characters (Coleoptera: Cucujoidea)" Archived 2011-07-18 at the Wayback Machine
  8. ↑ Skelley, Paul E. (2009): Pleasing fungus beetles of the West Indies (Coleoptera: Erotylidae: Erotylinae). Insect.Mund. 82: 1-94. PDF fulltext
  9. ↑ Torres-Pachón, Mónica; Gasca-Álvarez; Héctor Jaime; Bustos-Martínez, Miller Felipe; Skelley, Paul E. & García-Sarmiento, Martha J. (2026): Erotylinae (Coleoptera: Erotylidae) de la colección entomológica del Museo de Historia Natural de la Universidad Pedagógica Nacional. ["Erotylinae (Coleoptera: Erotylidae) housed in Natural History Museum Entomological Collection of Universidad Pedagógica Nacional." Spanish with English abstract.] Revista UDCA Actualidad & Divulgación Científica 29(1): e3002. doi:10.31910/rudca.v29.n1.2026.3002
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