Comparative morphology and key to Amydetinae genera, with description of three new firefly species (Coleoptera, Lampyridae)

Abstract

Amydetinae is an exclusively Neotropical subfamily of fireflies, distributed among three genera: Amydetes Illiger, 1807, Magnoculus McDermott, 1964, and Memoan Silveira & Mermudes, 2013. Here, we describe three new species of Amydetinae: two belonging to Amydetes (A. alexisp. nov. and A. marolaesp. nov.) and one to the previously monotypic Memoan (Me. conanisp. nov.). All three species are known only from the Atlantic Forest in southeastern Brazil. Endoskeletal structures of Memoan and Magnoculus species are described and compared with those of Amydetes for the first time. After studying the type material, Photinus fruhstorferi Pic, 1942 is transferred to Memoan, generating Memoan fruhstorfericomb. nov., and Me. ciceroi Silveira & Mermudes, 2013 syn. nov. is placed as a junior synonym. We also redescribe Magnoculus obscurus Olivier, 1885 and compare it to other species of genus and to other amydetine taxa to identify potential new diagnostic traits for the Amydetinae and its constituting genera. We provide an updated diagnosis for Memoan, illustrations for all four species, and a distribution map for the three new species, as well as a key to adult males of the three amydetine genera, and an updated key to Amydetes species based on males.

Firefly (Coleoptera, Lampyridae) species from the Atlantic Forest hotspot, Brazil

“…This work includes: (i) the original descriptions of many of the endemic species covered in this dataset and (ii) monographic reviews which confirmed the endemism (to the Atlantic Forest) of several other species. Data were taken from the original source ( Silveira and Mermudes 2013 , Silveira and Mermudes 2014a , Silveira and Mermudes 2014b , Bocakova et al 2016 , Silveira et al 2016 , Silveira and Mermudes 2017 , Silveira et al 2018 , Campello-Gonçalves et al 2019 , Nunes et al 2019 , Silveira et al 2019 , Silveira et al 2020 , Vaz et al 2020a , Vaz et al 2020b , Silveira et al 2021 , Vaz et al 2021a , Bocakova et al 2022 and Campello-Gonçalves et al 2022 ).…”

When a key innovation becomes redundant: Patterns, drivers and consequences of elytral reduction inColeoptera

“…However, species of the latter subfamily have moreor-less narrowed and dehiscent elytra, which expose a part of the dorsal abdomen and the hind wings. Females of all three groups are unknown but presumably highly paedomorphic (Campello et al, 2022;Ferreira et al, 2019Ferreira et al, , 2020. In the morphologically diverse Ototretinae, males usually do not have distinctly shortened elytra, although one or two abdominal tergites are exposed in some cases.…”

Phylogeny of Scissicauda Species, with Eight New Species, including the First Photinini Fireflies with Biflabellate Antennae (Coleoptera: Lampyridae)

“…Our matrix included morphological characters from male specimens covering the three tagmata: head (11), thorax (20), and abdomen (77). Encoded as binary (N = 64) or multistate (N = 44).…”

“…Recent studies brought about significant improvements at the subfamily (e.g., [2]] and genus levels (e.g., [3][4][5][6]). Many genera have been revised or at least better delimited in the last decade, helping to reduce the taxonomic impediment of this family (e.g., [3,4,[7][8][9][10][11]). However, most genera remain poorly delimited.…”