Raphirus

Pietrykowska-Tudruj, Ewa, Czepiel-Mil, Katarzyna & Staniec, Bernard, 2014, Larval morphology of selected Quedius Stephens, 1829 (Coleoptera: Staphylinidae: Staphylinini) with comments on their subgeneric affiliation, Zootaxa 3827 (4), pp. 493-516 : 510

Subgenus Raphirus

Diagnosis. In spite of several available larval descriptions of the members of Raphirus : Q. alpestris , Q. ghilarovi , Q. fumatus , Q. humeralis , Q. lateralis , Q. nemoralis , Q. picipes , Q. semiobscurus , Q. suturalis , Q. umbrinus ( Paulian 1941; Smetana 1962; Pototskaya 1967; Frank 1969; Kasule 1970), only four common characters were determined at the subgenus level, which are as follows: head widened anteriorly, posterior part of nasale as in the subgenus Quedius (Fig. 3B), large sensory appendage on segment III acorn-shaped, pygopod clearly longer than urogomphi (Fig. 11D). These diagnostic characters, however, only permit distinguishing the subgenus Raphirus from Microsaurus , but not from Quedius or Distichalius . This probably results from the lack of sufficiently detailed morphological data on species described earlier, and perhaps a high morphological diversity of Raphirus larvae. That fact could also confirm the hypothesis that this subgenus, as presently defined may be artificial.