Lepicerus

Lepicerus is a genus of myxophagan beetles containing three described species in the family Lepiceridae; it is the only extant genus in the family, with another genus, Lepiceratus only known from fossils.[1][2] Extant species occur in the Neotropics, from Mexico south to Venezuela and Ecuador. Fossils referrable to the genus are known from the early Late Cretaceous of Southeast Asia.

Lepicerus Temporal range: Cenomanian–Recent PreꞒ Ꞓ O S D C P T J K Pg N
Lepicerus inaequalis
Scientific classification
Kingdom:	Animalia
Phylum:	Arthropoda
Class:	Insecta
Order:	Coleoptera
Suborder:	Myxophaga
Superfamily:	Lepiceroidea Hinton, 1936
Family:	Lepiceridae Hinton, 1936
Genus:	Lepicerus Hinton, 1936
Synonyms
Haplochelus

Species

• Lepicerus bufo
• Lepicerus inaequalis
• Lepicerus pichilingue
• †Lepicerus georissoides (Kirejtshuk and Poinar 2006)[3] Burmese amber, Myanmar Cenomanian.
• †Lepicerus mumia Jałoszyński and Yamamoto 2017[4] Burmese amber, Myanmar Cenomanian.
• †Lepicerus pretiosus (Kirejtshuk and Poinar 2013)[5] Burmese amber, Myanmar Cenomanian

Extinct genera within Lepiceridae

• †Lepiceratus Jałoszyński et al. 2020,[2] Burmese amber, Myanmar, Cenomanian

References

1. Ge, S.-Q.; Friedrich, F. & Beutel, R. G. (2010). "On the systematic position and taxonomic rank of the extinct myxophagan †Haplochelus (Coleoptera)". Insect Systematics & Evolution. 41 (4): 329–338. doi:10.1163/187631210X537385
2. Jałoszyński, Paweł; Luo, Xiao-Zhu; Hammel, Jörg U.; Yamamoto, Shûhei & Beutel, Rolf G. (2020). "The mid-Cretaceous †Lepiceratus gen. nov. and the evolution of the relict beetle family Lepiceridae (Insecta: Coleoptera: Myxophaga)". Journal of Systematic Palaeontology. 18 (13). doi:10.1080/14772019.2020.1747561
3. A. G. Kirejtshuk and G. Poinar. 2006. Haplochelidae, a new family of Cretaceous beetles (Coleoptera: Myxophaga) from Burmese amber. Proceedings of the Entomological Society of Washington 108:155-164
4. Jałoszyński, Paweł; Yamamoto, Shûhei; Takahashi, Yui (October 2017). "Discovery of a new Mesozoic species of the ancient genus Lepicerus (Coleoptera: Myxophaga: Lepiceridae), with implications for the systematic placement of all previously described extinct 'lepiceroids'". Cretaceous Research. 78: 95–102. doi:10.1016/j.cretres.2017.06.001.
5. A. G. Kirejtshuk and G. Poinar. 2013. On the systematic position of the genera Lepiceroides gen. n. and Haplochelus, with notes on the taxonomy and phylogeny of the Myxophaga (Coleoptera). In D. Azar, M. Engel, E. Jarzembowski, L. Krogmann, A. Nel, J. Santiago-Blay (eds.), Insect Evolution in an Ambiferous and Stone Alphabet 55-69

External links

• "Lepiceridae". Integrated Taxonomic Information System.