Checklist, Bibliography and Quantitative Data of the Arthropods of Hispaniola

Abstract

An updated and extensively revised checklist of the arthropods of Hispaniola (Dominican Republic and Haiti) is presented 11 years after the publication of the original in 2008. It integrates and quantifies all the terrestrial and surrounding marine arthropod species (plus those of Tardigrada and Onychophora), reported in the zoological literature for Hispaniola through the middle of 2019. A total of 9,920 valid species (8,202 extant and 1,718 fossil) are listed, which represents an increase of 1,683 species (1,369 extant and 314 fossil) from the original list. The largest component is Insecta (6,784 extant and 1,136 fossil), including 2,206 extant species of Coleoptera, 1,042 species of Hemiptera, 929 species of Diptera, 913 species of Lepidoptera and 774 species of Hymenoptera. Emphasis is on reviewing and updating the original list, including all newly recorded taxa and all pertinent taxonomic changes proposed since then. Important corrections have been made, and explanatory notes have been added. For example, multiple authors have confused the Lesser Antillean island of Dominica with the Dominican Republic. This error is much more common in the literature than was initially recognized. Erroneous records attributing species from one island to the other have been identified and corrected. The original spelling of the cricket species Scapsipedus bastardoi Otte & Perez-Gelabert, 2009, dedicated to Dominican biologist Ruth H. Bastardo, is corrected to Scapsipedus bastardoae nom. emend. High species endemism is typical of the biota of Caribbean islands. In this checklist, a total of 3,161 arthropod species (38.6%) are considered endemic or unique to Hispaniola. Among the speciose groups with higher levels of endemism are the Diplopoda (91.6%), Orthoptera (90.1%), Trichoptera (82.6%), Coleoptera (49.3%) and Araneae (47.5%). Also, a total of 201 arthropod species (174 insects + 27 non-insects) are identified as introduced to the island. The accompanying bibliography complements the taxonomic information and includes over 5,000 titles.

A tardigrade in Dominican amber

“…The most heavily sampled and studied are Burmese amber (Cretaceous), Baltic amber (Eocene) and Dominican amber (Miocene). More than 3000 euarthropod species have been described from Baltic amber [ 29 ], nearly 1500 total species in Burmese amber [ 41 ] and nearly 1400 species from Dominican amber [ 42 ]. It is notable that previously described fossil tardigrade taxa are known from the less intensively sampled Canadian and New Jersey amber, with just over 100 and approximately 130 species reported, respectively [ 43 , 44 ].…”

“…Because of the relatively young age of the Dominican amber, its euarthropod fauna is largely modern and most species are attributable to extant lineages among well-sampled groups. For example, although ants comprise between 25 and 35% of all Dominican amber inclusions and there are currently more than 80 described species from this deposit [ 47 ], only two of them are placed within extinct genera [ 42 ]. Some extant taxa were first described in Dominican amber prior to their discovery in extant neotropical communities, such as the ant genera Gracilidris and Leptomyrmex [ 48 , 49 ].…”

First record of Phyllocoptruta musae (Acari: Prostigmata: Eriophyidae) in the Neotropics, in Hispaniola

“…The seta of the tibia is basal and small, approximately 3 µm (Keifer, 1955). It is distinguished from P. oleivora (Ashmead, 1879), which has citrus plants as hosts and so far the only species of the genus reported in Hispaniola (Perez-Gelabert, 2020). Keifer (1955) reported that P. musae can be distinguished from P. oleivora, mainly by the elongate tibiae.…”

A taxonomic revision of the Archipini of the Caribbean (Lepidoptera, Tortricidae, Tortricinae)

“…There exist no comprehensive Caribbean-centric revisions for any tortricid groups. Recent papers have begun to shed light on Caribbean tortricid diversity, but these have all been part of broader, Neotropical generic revisions (Razowski and Becker 2000b;Adamski and Brown 2001;Brown and Brown 2004;Phillips-Rodriguez and Powell 2007;Brown 2008;Razowski and Brown 2008;Brown 2009;Razowski and Becker 2010;Brown et al 2018), isolated taxonomic treatments (Matthews et al 2012(Matthews et al , 2019Brown et al 2018;Gilligan et al 2018;Austin et al 2019), or faunal inventories of the Lepidoptera in general (Núñez-Aguila & Barro-Cañamero 2012;Perez-Gelabert 2020). The present paper represents the first comprehensive taxonomic revision of a Caribbean tortricid tribe.…”