Lepicerus Explained

Lepicerus is a genus of myxophagan beetles containing three described species in the family Lepiceridae; it is the only extant genus in the family, with another genus, Lepiceratus only known from fossils.^{[1] [2]} Extant species occur in the Neotropics, from Mexico south to Venezuela and Ecuador. Fossils referrable to the genus are known from the early Late Cretaceous of Southeast Asia.

Species

• Lepicerus bufo
• Lepicerus inaequalis
• Lepicerus pichilingue

Three additional species are known from the Late Cretaceous (Cenomanian) as inclusions in Burmese amber from Myanmar.

• Lepicerus georissoides ^[3]
• †Lepicerus mumia ^[4]
• †Lepicerus pretiosus ^[5]

Extinct Lepiceridae genera

• †Lepiceratus Cenomanian, Burmese amber, Myanmar

Notes and References

1. Ge, S.-Q.; Friedrich, F. & Beutel, R. G. (2010). "On the systematic position and taxonomic rank of the extinct myxophagan †Haplochelus (Coleoptera)". Insect Systematics & Evolution. 41 (4): 329–338.
2. Jałoszyński, Paweł; Luo, Xiao-Zhu; Hammel, Jörg U.; Yamamoto, Shûhei & Beutel, Rolf G. (2020). "The mid-Cretaceous †Lepiceratus gen. nov. and the evolution of the relict beetle family Lepiceridae (Insecta: Coleoptera: Myxophaga)". Journal of Systematic Palaeontology. 18 (13).
3. Kirejtshuk . A.G. . Poinar . G. Jr. . 2006 . Haplochelidae, a new family of Cretaceous beetles (Coleoptera: Myxophaga) from Burmese amber . Proceedings of the Entomological Society of Washington . 108 . 155-164.
4. Jałoszyński. Paweł. Yamamoto. Shûhei. Takahashi. Yui. October 2017. Discovery of a new Mesozoic species of the ancient genus Lepicerus (Coleoptera: Myxophaga: Lepiceridae), with implications for the systematic placement of all previously described extinct 'lepiceroids'. Cretaceous Research. en. 78. 95–102. 10.1016/j.cretres.2017.06.001.
5. A. G. Kirejtshuk and G. Poinar. 2013. On the systematic position of the genera Lepiceroides gen. n. and Haplochelus, with notes on the taxonomy and phylogeny of the Myxophaga (Coleoptera). In D. Azar, M. Engel, E. Jarzembowski, L. Krogmann, A. Nel, J. Santiago-Blay (eds.), Insect Evolution in an Ambiferous and Stone Alphabet 55-69