Cercyon Leach, 1817

Arriaga-Varela, Emmanuel, Seidel, Matthias, Deler-Hernandez, Albert, Viktor Senderov, & Fikacek, Martin, 2017, A review of the Cercyon Leach (Coleoptera, Hydrophilidae, Sphaeridiinae) of the Greater Antilles, ZooKeys 681, pp. 39-93 : 41

Cercyon Leach, 1817

Cercyon Leach, 1817: 95. - Type species: Dermestes melanocephalus Linnaeus (designated by Thomson 1859: 19).

Diagnosis.

Cercyon can be distinguished from other hydrophilid genera occurring in the Greater Antilles by the following combination of characters: antenna with compact club; prothorax with conspicuous antennal groove not reaching pronotal margin; medial part of prosternum not demarcated from lateral parts; metaventrite without arcuate lines in anterolateral corners; mesoventral plate fusiform, narrowing anteriorly and posteriorly, touching anterior margin of metaventrite in one point.

Cercyon species are very similar to the members of Pelosoma , a Neotropical genus that is recorded from the Lesser Antilles; Pelosoma differs from Cercyon by the mesoventral plate widely contacting the metaventrite (it only narrowly contacts it in Cercyon ). Small species of Cercyon may resemble the members of Oosternum , which can be easily distinguished from Cercyon by possessing a metaventrite with an arcuate ridge delimiting its anterolateral corner, and in some species also by elevated median part of the prosternum.

Key to the Greater Antilles species of Cercyon