The enigmatic Megalopinus fauna of Arizona (USA) – New distributional records and description of a new species (Coleoptera: Staphylinidae: Megalopsidiinae)
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.25674/520Keywords:
Rove beetles, taxonomy, faunistics, sky islands, Madrean RegionAbstract
Three species of the rove beetle genus Megalopinus Eichelbaum, 1915 are reported from Arizona, USA. One species, Megalopinus billi Mainda spec. nov., is described from the Patagonia Mountains (Santa Cruz County) and Gardner Canyon (Pima County). Megalopinus lingafelteri Mainda, 2023 is recorded from two additional localities; the female is described and illustrated here for the first time. Finally, Megalopinus rufipes (LeConte, 1863) is newly recorded from Arizona.
Downloads
References
Benick, L. (1951): Spezielles und Allgemeines über die Subfam. Megalopsidiinae (Col. Staph.). Entomologische Blätter für Biologie und Systematik der Käfer 47: 58–87.
Bernhauer, M. (1933): Neue Staphyliniden aus Argentinien (I) (Col.). Revista de Entomologia 3(3): 326–334.
Favé, M.-J., Johnson, R. A., Cover, S., Handschuh, S., Metscher, B. D., Müller, G. B., Gopalan, S. & Abouheif, E. (2015): Past climate change on Sky Islands drives novelty in a core developmental gene network and its phenotype. BMC Evolutionary Biology 15: 183 doi.org/10.1186/s12862-015-0448-4
Leschen, R. A. B. & Newton, A. F. (2003): Larval description, adult feeding behavior, and phylogenetic placement of Megalopinus (Coleoptera: Staphylinidae). The Coleopterists Bulletin 57(4): 469–493.
Mainda, T. (2025). Three species of Megalopinus Eichelbaum, 1915 from Central Laos (Coleoptera, Staphylinidae, Megalopsidiinae). Baltic Journal of Coleopterology 25(2): 317–323. doi.org/10.59893/bjc.25(2).018
Mainda, T., Gogoi, H., Dobiam, T., Singh, S. & Betz, O. (2026): The genus Megalopinus Eichelbaum, 1915 in Arunachal Pradesh, India (Coleoptera: Staphylinidae: Megalopsidiinae). Soil Organisms 98(1): 91–99.
Puthz, V. (1994): Die Gruppe des Megalopinus peploides (Sharp) (Coleoptera, Staphylinidae). Entomologische Blätter 90: 16–34.
Puthz, V. (2012): Über die neuweltlichen Megalopinus-Arten (Coleoptera, Staphylinidae). Linzer Biologische Beiträge 44(1): 613–834.
Warshall, P. (1994): The Madrean Sky Island Archipelago: a planetary overview. In: DeBano, L., Ffolliott, P., Ortega-Rubio, A., Gottfried, G., Hamre, R. & Edminster, C. (eds): Biodiversity and Management of the Madrean Archipelago: The Sky Islands of Southwestern United States and Northwestern Mexico. – Fort Collins: US Department of Agriculture, Forest Service: 6–18.
Downloads
Published
Issue
Section
License
Copyright (c) 2026 Tobias Mainda, Lara Lopardo, Peter Michalik

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
Soil Organisms is committed to fair open access publishing. All articles are available online without publication fees. Articles published from Vol. 96 No. 3 (2024) onwards are licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0) license. Articles published from Vol. 80 No. 1 through Vol. 96 No. 2 are available under the previous terms, allowing non-commercial, private, and scientific use.
Bluesky
