Sphaeroderma Stephens, 1831

Biondi, Maurizio & D'Alessandro, Paola, 2012, Afrotropical flea beetle genera: a key to their identification, updated catalogue and biogeographical analysis (Coleoptera, Chrysomelidae, Galerucinae, Alticini), ZooKeys 253, pp. 1-158 : 45

Sphaeroderma Stephens, 1831 Figs 99263-264366

=Argosomus Wollaston, 1867 (synonymized by Scherer 1961)

=Musaka Bechyné, 1958a (synonymized by Scherer 1961)

References.

Stephens 1831: 328; Wollaston 1867: 152; Bryant 1943: 487; Bechyné 1958a: 89; 1968: 1702; Scherer 1961: 252; Biondi and D’Alessandro 2010a: 414.

Type species.

Sphaeroderma : Altica testacea Fabricius, 1775: 114 (Europe), by subsequent designation by Maulik, (1926: 316); Argosomus : Argosomus epilachnoides Wollaston, 1867: 152 (Cape Verde Islands: Brava), by subsequent designation by Konstantinov and Vanderberg (1996: 351); Musaka : Sphaeroderma freyi Bechyné, 1955b: 563 (Cameroon), by original designation.

Distribution.

Afrotropical (including Madagascar) and Australian, Oriental, and Palaearctic regions. The species of Sphaeroderma reported from the Neotropical and Nearctic regions should be attributed to different genera (cf. Savini and Furth 2001) (Fig. 366).

Ecology.

Species in this genus are mainly associated with plants in the families Asteraceae and Ranunculaceae (cf. Jolivet and Hawkeswood 1995).

Notes.

Over fifty species have been recorded from Sub-Saharan African and about ten from Madagascar.