Reliable placement of beetle fossils via phylogenetic analyses – Triassic Leehermania as a case study (Staphylinidae or Myxophaga?)

Abstract

Triassic fossils are rare but crucial for understanding the early evolution of large insect clades including beetles (Coleoptera). Their phylogenetic assignment is problematic because of fragmentary preservation, yet crucial for the correct use of the information they provide. Here an analysis is presented of the phylogenetic position of Leehermania prorova, the Late Triassic compressed fossil which was described and hitherto widely used as the oldest representative of Staphylinidae (rove beetles) in the suborder Polyphaga. By contrast with the intuitive character assessment made in the original description, a phylogenetic analysis of Leehermania is performed using an extensive morphological matrix of extant Coleoptera provided by the Beetle Tree of Life project, constrained in view of the latest relevant molecular phylogenies. As a result, Leehermania is identified as an extinct lineage within the beetle suborder Myxophaga, closest to the modern family Hydroscaphidae. Excluding Leehermania from Staphylinidae and placing it in Myxophaga amends erroneous assumptions about early diversification of rove beetles and enhances our views of the evolutionary history of Coleoptera.

Diversification of myrmecophilous Clavigeritae beetles (Coleoptera: Staphylinidae: Pselaphinae) and their radiation in New Caledonia

“…To test the phylogenetic position of selected taxa for which no DNA data were available, including a reanalysis of the position of Protoclaviger trichodens , we employed a topology‐constrained analyses of morphology‐only data using maximum parsimony and Bayesian inference, as introduced by Fikáček et al . (2020). Topology constraints followed the results of the ML analysis of molecular data.…”

“…The position of the analysed taxon in the final majority rule tree was inspected, along with posterior probabilities of the alternative placements visualized using the R script by Fikáček et al . (2020). Nexus files with MrBayes commands and constraints for the Protoclaviger analysis are available in File S9.…”

The limits of Quediini at last (Staphylinidae: Staphylininae): a rove beetle mega‐radiation resolved by comprehensive sampling and anchored phylogenomics

“…Haddad et al, 2018) and the family Lampyridae (Martin et al, 2019), both distant from Staphylinidae and the superfamily Staphylinoidea to which it belongs (Mckenna et al, 2019). As Staphylinidae was already diverse by the mid‐Jurassic (Chatzimanolis, 2018; Fikáček et al, 2020) and is the largest family of organisms with more than 60 000 species (Newton, 2019), rove beetle systematics would undoubtedly benefit from the development of a specialized AHE probe set.…”

On the value of Burmese amber for understanding insect evolution: Insights from †Heterobathmilla– an exceptional stem group genus of Strepsiptera (Insecta)

“…New important beetle fossils were also described, for instance from the suborder Myxophaga, which was previously largely (†Catiniidae? ; Crowson, 1975; Beutel et al, 2008) or completely missing from the fossil record (e.g., Jałoszyński et al, 2017; see also Fikáček et al, 2020).…”

“…The importance of a reliable identification of extinct species has been recently underlined in a study on a Triassic impression fossil, † Leehermania prorova Chatzimanolis, Grimaldi and Engel, which was originally placed in the polyphagan beetle family Staphylinidae (Chatzimanolis et al, 2012). It was transferred to the suborder Myxophaga based on in‐depth phylogenetic analyses with cladistic and Bayesian methods (Fikáček et al, 2020). This transfer has a strong impact on future dating of the megadiverse beetle suborder Polyphaga and the series Staphyliniformia (see e.g.…”