Pinodytes cryptophagoides ( Mannerheim, 1852 )

Peck, Stewart B. & Cook, Joyce, 2011, Systematics, distributions and bionomics of the Catopocerini (eyeless soil fungivore beetles) of North America (Coleoptera: Leiodidae: Catopocerinae) 3077, Zootaxa 3077 (1), pp. 1-118 : 38-39

Pinodytes cryptophagoides ( Mannerheim, 1852) , resurrected combination

( Figs. 28 , 257–264 , 265A )

Catops cryptophagoides Mannerheim 1852: 333 ;

Pinodytes cryptophagoides: Horn 1880: 249 (new combination); Hamilton 1894: 16; Keen 1895: 168; Blatchley 1910: 277.. Catopocerus cryptophagoides: Hatch 1928: 72 (new combination); 1957: 72; Brown 1933: 215.

Type material. Lectotype here designated, to ensure the name’s proper and consistent application, from syntype in LeConte collection, MCZC, with the following labels: " Pinodytes cryptophagoides ," "Pippingsk." [printed], "Sitkha" [hand written], '56." [handwritten], and red label "type/7377"; and our red lectotype label. This is undoubtedly the specimen seen by Horn (1880: 249). Another syntype is reported in MZHF ( Silferberg 1987: 49), not seen. Type locality: "Sitkha" [=Sitka], Alaska.

Additional material examined. We examined 678 additional specimens (see Appendix) for a total of 679 specimens.

Distribution. Specimens ( Fig. 265A ) are known from mainland British Columbia, Canada, and Vancouver and the Haida Gwaii (formerly Queen Charlotte) Islands as well as Sitka, in the “panhandle” of southeastern Alaska, and numerous localities in Washington State, in Clallam, Jefferson, King, Mason, Pierce, Snohomish, Thurston, and Walla Walla counties. Horn (1880: 249) mentions the species near Washington, D. C., but this is a misidentification of Catopocerus politus Motschulsky. Leng (1920) repeats this D. C. locality and also erroneously adds southern California to the distribution.

As presently understood the species has a distribution of about 1700 km in length along the Pacific coast, from eastern Washington, through northwestern Washington and coastal BC to Sitka, Alaska, including Vancouver and the Haida Gwaii Islands. These last populations need not represent post-glacial colonization from southern populations. There is evidence that parts of the islands were ice free at the height of the late Wisconsin glaciation ( Warner et al. 1982) and that they may have served as a biotic refugium ( Scudder and Gessler 1989). But post glacial colonization is certainly a possibility through the mechanism of marine drift of slide rafts and other floating debris. There may be other populations that survived Pleistocene glaciations in other smaller coastal refugia.

Based on a misunderstanding of the identity of Catopocerus politus in the vicinity of Washington, D. C., Blatchley (1910: 277) assumed that it was P. cryptophgoides , which he thought was distributed from Alaska to D. C., would be found in Indiana. This is an error.

Diagnosis. Total length 1.66–1.88 mm; greatest width 0.80–0.90 mm. Reddish brown; elongate-oval in shape ( Fig. 28 ). Head. Sparsely punctate, punctures variable in size; with reticulate microsculpture. Eyes absent. Antennae ( Fig. 257 ) with antennomere 3 shorter and narrower than 2; antennomere 5 larger that 4, longer than 6; antennomere 7 clearly larger than 8; antennomeres 9 and 10 lack visible sensory vesicles. Pronotum. Finely, sparsely punctate; a few larger punctures near apical margin; with reticulate microsculpture. Widest sub-basally, slightly narrower than elytra; sides rounded, converging in apical one-half; apical margin emarginate; basal angles weakly produced posteriorly, weakly obtuse; apical angles rounded. Elytra. Punctation variable in size, moderately closely but irregularly spaced; punctures joined transversely by fine strioles; sub-basally with a clearly impressed transverse striole connecting a transverse row of punctures; joined elytra widest at basal one-fourth, narrowing to apex.

Legs. Protibia of male ( Fig. 258 ) triangular, broad at apex; narrower in female; outer margin with a few spines on apical one-half; inner margin with dense small spines on apical one-half. Mesotibia ( Fig. 259 ) evenly widened to apex; strongly spinose. Metatibia ( Fig. 260 ) slender, nearly straight; spinose on apical one-half. Metafemur ( Fig. 260 ) slender. Male protarsomeres ( Fig. 258 ) not or weakly dilated; bearing setae laterally and thin, transverse, colorless phanerae ventrally. Mesotarsomeres without phanerae. Venter. Mesoventrite ( Fig. 264 ) carinate; longitudinal carina depressed medially, shallowly excavated behind transverse carina. Male genitalia. Median lobe of aedeagus ( Figs. 261, 262 ) strongly curved near middle in lateral view, flattened apically; in dorsal view broad, apex attenuately spinose. Inverted internal sac ( Fig. 262 ) with various shapes and sizes of spines and a sclerotized curved structure. Parameres ( Figs. 261, 262 ) narrow, not reaching apex of median lobe, each bearing two setae at apex. Spermatheca. Tubular ( Fig. 263 ), robust, curved at apex and base.

Notes on material. The first collections of the species were by D. Pippingsköld, a Master Surgeon, of the Russian-American Company, at the Russian fort at Sitka, Alaska, or on a Finnish ship visiting Sitka. The small size of the beetle, collected under rocks, attests to the thoroughness of his search for beetles. This is just one of the numerous species of beetles discovered and described by Russian naturalists from lands around the north Pacific. We find remarkable the activities of Russian and other naturalists in Russian North America , considering that their field work necessitated voyages from St. Petersburg and to sites half way around the world to make the collections and the same to return. These collecting efforts, from about 1820 to 1840, were of G. Fischer von Waldheim, Johann F. Eschscholtz, and C. G. Mannerheim .

We assume that the report of Catopocerus cryptophagoides by Horn (1880), and repeated by Leng (1920), from the District of Columbia (both as a misidentification of C. politus Motschulsky (= C. ulkei Brown 1933 )), was probably the basis of Portevin’s (1922) synonomization of C. politus under C. cryptophagoides .

Bionomics. The species has been found associated with sporocarps of hypogeous fungi ( Fogel and Peck 1975). Keen (1895: 168) reports the species from under logs from June to September at Massett, Queen Charlotte Islands, B. C.

Figures

FIGURES 28–36. Pinodytes habitus photos. 28. P. cryptophagoides, total length 1.88 mm. 29. P. subterraneus, total length 3.48 mm. 30. P. imbricatus, total length 3.20 mm. 31. P. newelli, total length 2.30 mm. 32. P. capizzii, total length 1.64 mm. 33. P.rothi, total length 1.58 mm. 34. P. tibialis, total length 1.60 mm. 35. P. angulatus, total length 1.86 mm. 36. P. delnorte, total length 1.72 mm.

FIGURES 257–264. Pinodytes cryptophagoides. 257. Male right antenna, dorsal. 258. Male right protibia and protarsus. 259. Male right mesotibia. 260. Male right metafemur and metatibia. 261. Aedeagus, lateral. 262. Aedeagus, dorsal. 263. Spermatheca. 264. Mesoventrite, lateral. Scale bar = 0.15 mm (Fig. 263), 0.3 mm (Figs. 262, 264), 0.4 mm (Figs. 257–261).

FIGURE265. Distributions of species in the Pinodytes cryptophagoides species group in northwestern North America. Map A. P. cryptophagoides, dots, extending from southeastern Washington State, through coastal mainland and insular British Columbia, to Sitka, Alaska. The distribution may have been achieved by coastal currents and dispersal on slide rafts. Map B. P. haidagwaii, dots, restricted to the Haida Gwaii (Formerly Queen Charlotte) Islands. This distribution argues for Pleistocene survival on the islands, which served as a Pleistocene refugium, and possibly for a pre-Pleistocene speciation event on the islands.