PEET - Austral Staphylinidae

Databases | Catalog of austral species of Staphylinidae and other Staphylinoidea

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This queryable catalog database provides data concerning the original descriptions of all species and subspecies of Staphylinidae and the related families Silphidae, Agyrtidae and Leiodidae described from, or known to occur in, the austral and near-austral parts of the world (Australia, New Zealand, New Caledonia, Chile, southern Argentina, South Africa, Madagascar and nearby islands, and subantarctic islands). It provides the names’ original orthography, combination, and reference and indicates their present taxonomic placement and status (as valid species or subspecies, or junior synonyms, homonyms or unavailable names, and in the latter cases the valid name), type locality and depository if known (data presently incomplete), and geographical distribution (in both text and regional check-off fields, with state- or province-level detail within austral areas. Often explanatory comments regarding the original attribution or current status are provided. In general, and unlike some catalogs such as Herman’s immense staphylinid catalog cited below, subsequent uses of names (including different generic combinations) are not cited. All entries indicate if the original descriptions were examined or if data were obtained from other sources. Misspellings are generally not included unless very widely used; when included, they are identified as such. Full documentation of this and the other databases is available here and assignment of islands to regions (also included in the full documentation) is shown here. Some distributional data are previously unpublished, and are based on examination of specimens in collections; such cases are not necessarily indicated.

This database is extracted from a larger worldwide database of names of all Staphyliniformia maintained primarily by co-PI Newton that has been checked extensively against original literature and is continually updated. Currently (August 2005) this source database includes 84,671 published names for 66,819 valid species, of which 60,349 names and 48,853 valid species belong to Staphylinidae. For the austral species covered here, there are currently 7,861 names for 6,937 valid species. Species known from New Guinea but not more austral areas are not presented here; most of the New Guinean fauna appears not to be austral in origin.

For Staphylinidae, the major sources for this database other than direct input from original descriptions or catalogs have been: (1) collection inventory database of Field Museum Staphylinidae constructed with support of U.S. NSF Grant BSR-8814449; (2) database of names of Tachyporinae donated in 1992 by J. M. Campbell and A. Davies of the Canadian National Collection of Insects, Ottawa; (3) electronic checklist of names of Paederinae (1993) and Staphylininae (1992) supplied by L. H. Herman of the American Museum of Natural History, New York; (4) databases of Pselaphinae of North and Central America (1994), South America (1995), Australia (1985), and New Zealand (1994) provided by D. S. Chandler of the University of New Hampshire; and (5) electronic text catalogs of names of world Scaphidiinae and Palaearctic Pselaphinae provided (2001) by I. Löbl of the Museum d’Histoire Naturelle, Genève, the former published as Löbl (1997). For most subfamilies, name and distributional data have been checked against L. Herman’s thorough recent catalog (Herman 2001). In the case of the four large subfamilies not covered by that catalog, Paederinae and Scaphidiinae are thought to be relatively complete and current based on other sources noted above, and Aleocharinae and Pselaphinae are nearly complete worldwide, but all of these subfamilies are thought to be complete for the austral regions included here. When known, introduction to areas outside species’ original ranges is noted in the text distribution fields.

For other families of Staphyliniformia that have been or are in the process of being added, the main sources other than direct input from original descriptions or catalogs have been electronic text catalogs of Agyrtidae and Silphidae provided in 1996 by R. B. Madge of Calgary, Canada; New World Scydmaenidae provided in 2000 by S. O’Keefe of Morehead University; New Zealand Scydmaenidae provided in 2000 by S. Thorpe of the Auckland Museum; Palaearctic Scydmaenidae provided in 2005 by A. Davies of Agriculture and Agri-Food Canada; Palaearctic Ptiliidae provided in 2004 by C. Johnson of the Manchester Museum; world Histeridae provided in 2002 by S. Mazur of Warsaw Agricultural University (published as Mazur 1997); and world Hydraenidae and Hydrophilidae sensu lato provided by the late M. Hansen via J. Pedersen, (published as Hansen 1998, 1999).

All references in the catalog are linked to entries in the Bibliography by a unique number, RefNo, assigned to each publication, and the original reference is displayed with each name in the detailed query results.

We thank all colleagues mentioned above for their collaboration in providing published or unpublished data that has been incorporated into this catalog. All such data was checked by us against original literature as far as possible, and corrected or modified in various ways. We are responsible for any remaining errors or omissions.

We are well along in the process of extending this catalog to cover the austral species of the remaining families of Staphylinoidea, as well as all Hydrophiloidea (including Histeroidea), thus covering the entire beetle series Staphyliniformia.

Suggested form of citation for this database:
Newton, A. F. and M. K. Thayer. Catalog of austral species of Staphylinidae and other Staphylinoidea [online]. Chicago: Field Museum of Natural History [posted date of last update].
Available from URL: <http://www.fieldmuseum.org/peet_staph/db_1b.html>
Accessed/Downloaded [your access/download date].

Sources cited
Hansen, M. 1998. Hydraenidae (Coleoptera), World Catalogue of Insects 1: 1-168. (RefNo 6113)

Hansen, M. 1999. Hydrophiloidea (s. str.) (Coleoptera). World Catalogue of Insects 2: 1-416. (RefNo 7259)

Herman, L. H. 2001. Catalog of the Staphylinidae (Insecta: Coleoptera). 1758 to the end of the second millennium. Parts I-VII. Bulletin of the American Museum of Natural History 265: 1-4218 + vi, v, v, v, v, v, v pp. (RefNo 8090)

Löbl, I. 1997. Catalogue of the Scaphidiinae (Coleoptera: Staphylinidae). Instrumenta Biodiversitatis I, Muséum d'Histoire Naturelle, Genève, xii + 190 pp. (RefNo 5450)

Mazur, S. 1997. A world catalogue of the Histeridae (Coleoptera: Histeroidea). Genus, International Journal of Invertebrate Taxonomy (Supplement), Wroclaw, Poland. 373 pp. (RefNo 5652)

Related links of interest:
Beetles of the New Zealand subantarctic islands

Checklists and other information on Australian Staphylinidae: Pselaphinae; Ptiliidae; Silphidae; Hydrophiloidea (part of Australian Faunal Directory of ABRS)

Corrections or additions to this database would be greatly appreciated, and should be directed to Al Newton anewton@fieldmuseum.org

Database last updated on 27 August 2005

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