Dissochaetus Reitter

Peck, Stewart B., Gnaspini, Pedro & Newton, Alfred F., 2020, Updated catalog and generic keys of the Leiodidae (Insecta: Coleoptera) of the Neotropical region (“ Latin America ”: Mexico, the West Indies, and Central and South America), Zootaxa 4741 (1), pp. 1-114 : 20-21

Genus Dissochaetus Reitter

Dissochaetus Reitter, 1884: 39 ; Jeannel, 1936: 142 (redescription). Type species: Dissochaetus hetschkoi Reitter (3 species in original description, all as “new”— murrayi , hetschkoi , glabricollis ); des. in Jeannel, 1922: 41 (not stated as taxonomic change).

= Dissochaetus Portevin, 1902: 513 (as “new genus”, for “ Dissochaetus Reitter in litt.”), 1903a: 159. Type species: Catops spinipes Murray (monotypy). Note: Portevin (1907: 67) later recognized Reitter as author of the genus.

Note 1: North and Central American species revised in Peck (1999c) and Peck & Cook (2014, 2016, 2017).

Note 2: Jeannel (1936: 145, in key) proposed a set of species groups for this highly speciose genus, but they were not precisely defined (as already noted by Szymczakowski, 1963: 679). Salgado (2010b: 161) presents a different set of more defined species groups, as used below, excluding the species described by Peck & Cook (2014, 2016, 2017).

Key: to species of West Indies, Mexico and Central America in Peck & Cook, 2014: 9, 2016: 81, 2017: 93, respectively.

Distribution: Nearctic (three species), mostly Neotropical. Note: One undetermined (?undescribed) species from Tobago (Peck et al., 2002: 12); one undetermined species (based on one female) “described” in Salgado, 2008b:218 from Ecuador (it might have been described afterwards, but Salgado made no further reference to this material afterwards).

Biology: Carrion scavengers in forests, and sometimes as troglophiles in caves.