Two new genera of Australian dung beetles (Coleoptera: Scarabaeidae: Scarabaeinae) with the description of six new species and transfer of six described species

DOI
10.11646/zootaxa.4290.2.1
Publication Year
2017
Publication Site
Zootaxa
Journal Volume
4290
Page Numbers
201–243
Family
Scarabaeidae
General topic
Taxonomy
Author

Gunter, N L; Weir, T A

Abstract Note

A complex of small scarabaeine dung beetles related to Lepanus Balthasar, 1966 (Coleoptera: Scarabaeidae: Scarabaein-ae) is described, based on morphological and molecular characters. There are two new genera, six new species, and seven new combinations, including the transfer of one species to a pre-existing genus, as follows. Matthewsius Gunter & Weir new genus includes two new species, M. stricklandensis Gunter & Weir new species from central New South Wales, Aus-tralia and M. vanleeuweni Gunter & Weir new species from Pilbara region of Western Australia, Australia; two species formerly included within Aptenocanthon Matthews, 1974, M. rossi (Matthews, 1974) new combination and M. speewah (Storey & Monteith, 2000) new combination; and two species formerly included within Lepanus, M. illawarrensis (Mat-thews, 1974) new combination and M. penelopae (Matthews & Weir, 2002) new combination. Monteithocanthon Gunter & Weir new genus includes six species: Monteithocanthon elliotensis Gunter & Weir new species, Monteithocanthon koombooloomba Gunter & Weir new species, and Monteithocanthon paraarator Gunter & Weir new species from north-ern Queensland, Australia; Monteithocanthon peckorum Gunter & Weir new species from southwestern Western Austra-lia; and two species formally included within Lepanus, Monteithocanthon arator (Matthews, 1974) new combination and Monteithocanthon glaber (Matthews, 1974) new combination. Sauvagesinella loftyensis (Matthews & Weir, 2002) new combination is transferred from Lepanus on the basis of genetic and morphological similarities. © 2017 Magnolia Press.