Mocyta sphagnorum Klimaszewski & Webster

Klimaszewski, Jan, Langor, David W., Bourdon, Caroline, Gilbert, Amelie & Labrecque, Myriam, 2016, Two new species and new provincial records of aleocharine rove beetles from Newfoundland and Labrador, Canada (Coleoptera, Staphylinidae, Aleocharinae), ZooKeys 593, pp. 49-89 : 65-66

Taxon classification Animalia Coleoptera Staphylinidae

Mocyta sphagnorum Klimaszewski & Webster Figs 93-100

Diagnosis.

This species may be distinguishable from other Mocyta species by its large and dark brown to black pronotum, elytra about as long as pronotum (Figs 93, 94), shape of apical structures of the internal sac of the aedeagus (Fig. 95), and shape of the spermatheca (Fig. 100). For a more detailed description, see Klimaszewski et al. 2015c.

Distribution.

Bionomics.

In Newfoundland, adults were collected in pitfall traps in boreal mixedwood and conifer forests and from under seashore detritus. In New Brunswick, adults were found in sphagnum moss and litter in calcareous eastern white cedar fens, in a black spruce forest, and one individual was collected from moldy conifer duff at the base of a large pine in a mixed forest (Klimaszewski et al. 2015). Adults were found in April and May in New Brunswick, and June to August elsewhere.

Comments.

This species is probably more widely distributed in the boreal forest of Canada. Some specimens from Cheeseman Provincial Park are tentatively associated with this species because the antecostal suture of female sternite VIII was not straight like in typical forms but was strongly sinuate medially. These specimens were excluded from Mocyta fungi (Gravenhorst) because of the short elytra, about as long as the pronotum, while the elytra are longer than the pronotum in Mocyta fungi .