Parascopaeus Cameron, 1918: 76

Herman, Lee, 2023, Generic Revisions Of The Scopaeina And The Sphaeronina (Coleoptera: Staphylinidae: Paederinae: Lathrobiini), Bulletin of the American Museum of Natural History 2023 (460), pp. 1-195 : 180-181

Parascopaeus Cameron, 1918: 76 (species included: nitidus ). Type species: Parascopaeus nitidus Cameron , fixed by monotypy.

— Cameron, 1921 a: 353, 373, 403 (cited [erroneously] as a new subgenus of Medon on p.

DISCUSSION: Parascopaeus is not a member of the Scopaeina . Although never actually included in the Scopaeina , Parascopaeus was marginally associated with the subtribe when it was first described by being placed between Scopaeus and Dacnochilus ( Cameron, 1918: 76) , Medon and Scopaeus ( Cameron, 1921: 373, 403), or Acalophaena and Scopaeus ( Scheerpeltz, 1933: 1264) . Almost certainly by erroneous oversight, Cameron (1921: 403) listed it as a subgenus of Medon , which is closer than Scopaeus to its apparent affinity. On two other pages of the same article Cameron (1921: 353, 373) clearly cited it as a genus. For now, Parascopaeus should be placed in the Medonina , presently a subtribe-awaitingcorrect-placement genera.

I have seen only a single, card-mounted specimen of Parascopaeus nitidus Cameron, 1921 , the holotype of the type species, in the Natural History Museum, London. The species is small and similar to species of Scopaeus . The following is based on the original description and my notes from a 2007 examination of the dorsal side of the undissected holotype and as described by Cameron (1918: 76, 77). A better understanding of the affinities of Parascopaeus would require detailed examination and perhaps dissections of males and females.

Nonetheless, two features definitively purge it from the Scopaeina . Most notably, the type lacks the paraocular trichobothrium, which is characteristic of the Scopaeina (see figs. 309, 333), and it has a pronotal marginal ridge, which is absent in the Scopaeina . Except for the males of Orus ferrugineus and species of the Scopaeus chiriquensis species group, the Scopaeina have one or two pairs of labral denticles; the labrum of Parascopaeus is edentate. The width of the neck of Parascopaeus is slightly more than a quarter of the postocular width of the head, a character that varies from one eighth to two thirds the width of the head in the Scopaeina . Parascopaeus has a slender neck, but that alone does not support inclusion in Scopaeus or the Scopaeina . Among other defining features of the Scopaeina are the labial tripartite ligular lobe (fig. 187), and the trilobed anterior margin of abdominal sternum II. Both characters are ventral and could not be examined without removing the specimen from the mounting card, which I did not do.

For now, the practical reason for placing Parascopaeus in the Medonina is the nearly square pronotum, the absence of characters that place it elsewhere, and Cameron’s (1921: 403), perhaps erroneous citation of it as a subgenus of Medon .