Paromalus Erichson, 1834

Zhang, Ye-Jun & Zhou, Hong-Zhang, 2007, Taxonomy of the tribe Paromalini Reitter (Coleoptera: Histeridae, Dendrophilinae) from China, Zootaxa 1544, pp. 1-40 : 31

Genus Paromalus Erichson, 1834

Erichson, 1834: 167; Lacordaire, 1854: 272; Marseul, 1855: 100; Schmidt, 1885: 283; Reitter, 1909: 287; Bickhardt, 1910: 61; 1916: 108; 1917:116; Jakobson, 1911: 640, 647; Cooman, 1948: 133; Arnett, 1963: 376, 381; Witzgall, 1971: 178; Kryzhanovskij & Reichardt, 1976: 276; Vienna, 1980: 224; Mazur, 1984: 138 (catalogue); 1997: 186 (catalogue); 2001: 35; Yélamos & Ferrer, 1988: 181; Ôhara, 1994: 197; 1999: 118; Yélamos, 2002: 199 (character, key), 380; Löbl & Smetana, 2004: 74 (catalogue). Type species: Hister flavicornis Herbst, 1792: 40 . Designated by Westwood, 1840: 22.

Synonymy: Microlomalus Lewis, 1907: 318 ; Bickhardt, 1916: 108; 1917:118; Cooman, 1948: 133 (synonymized). Type species: Hister flavicornis Herbst, 1792: 40 Designated by Bickhardt, 1917: 118.

Micromalus (sic!): Vitale, 1929: 127.

Remarks. The genus Paromalus was erected by Erichson (1834). At that time, this genus was more heterogeneous than it is today. Since then many species have been transferred to other genera. Lewis (1907) divided the genus Paromalus Erichson into three genera, Paromalus , Microlomalus and Isolomalus . However, Microlomalus is an objective synonym of Paromalus , and Isolomalus is treated as a subgenus within Paromalus ( Mazur 1984, 1997, 2001). All the species of the genus Paromalus found in China belong to the subgenus Paromalus s. str.

About 60 species of this genus have been described worldwide ( Mazur 1997). They are mainly distributed in the New World, only a few species occur in the Oriental and Palaearctic Regions. They are normally found under bark of trees, sometimes in tree holes ( Mazur 2001). Before this study, only two species had been found in China. In this paper, we describe two new species from Yunnan and Xizang and record one additional species for the first time in China.