Genus Ptomaphagus Hellwig

Ptomaphagus Hellwig, 1795: 358 (attributed to Knoch); Jeannel, 1936: 67 (redescription). Type species: Tritoma sericea Fabricius (= Ptomaphagus subvillosus (Goeze)) (monotypy).

= Ptomaphagus Illiger, 1798: 84 (attributed to Knoch) (preoccupied, junior homonym of Ptomaphagus Hellwig). Type species: Helops sericeus Panzer, 1801 (= P. subvillosus (Goeze) (des. Thomson, 1859: 60),

=Ptomatophagus Agassiz, 1846: 316 (unjustified emendation of Ptomaphagus).

= Ptomophagus; Burgos-Solorio & Trejo-Loyo, 2001: 91 (misspelling, nomen nudum—see Note 4); Zaragoza-Caballero et al., 2019: 31 (misspelling—see Note 4).

Note 1: The genus was previously attributed to Illiger, 1798: 84 (by Peck et al., 1998a: 63; and also in Newton, 1998: 131, by citing Jeannel, 1911: 193 and Hatch, 1928: 164), but corrected in Newton, 1998: 132. The subgenera may not be valid clades (Peck et al., 1998a: 63 – 64).

Note 2: See note about synonymy between Ptomaphagus and Adelopsis under genus Adelopsis, above.

Note 3:—in error: Pic, 1913: 9 described “ Ptomaphagus rufiventris ” from Cuba. Jeannel, 1936: synonymized it under Ptomaphagus (Ptomaphagus) subvillosus Goeze [1777], an European species, and commented that he could be sure of the synonymy after dissection and analysis of the male holotype, indeed with a label “ Cuba ”, and he concluded that it was probably due to an error of locality in the label.

Note 4:—in error (misspelling and nomen nudum): Burgos-Solorio & Trejo-Loyo (2001: 91), and reproduced in Zaragoza-Caballero et al. (2019: 31), listed (for Morelos State, Mexico) the “taxon” “ Ptomophagus [sic] navarretei Gynaspini [sic], 1999”, which is here considered a nomen nudum. This combination has never been proposed in the literature, and we interpret that it refers to Dissochaetus navarretei Gnaspini, 1999, which was indeed described for Morelos State, Mexico (see under that genus, in this catalog), but belongs in a different genus, of a different tribe.

Yet, Zaragoza-Caballero et al. (2019: 31) uses the same misspelling for “ Ptomophagus [sic] (Adelops) altus Peck, 1973 ”, also referring to Burgos-Solorio & Trejo-Loyo (2001: 91), in which the genus name is spelled correctly.

Distribution: 132 species—Holarctic and Neotropical (in subgenera Adelops and Tupania).

Biology: Scavengers in moist forests, some are in animal burrows or nests, or caves (as troglophiles and troglobites).