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:
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|---|---|
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| Lepicerus inaequalis | |
Scientific classification 
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| Domain: | Eukaryota |
| Kingdom: | Animalia |
| Phylum: | Arthropoda |
| Class: | Insecta |
| Order: | Coleoptera |
| Suborder: | Myxophaga |
| Superfamily: | Lepiceroidea Hinton, 1936 |
| Family: | Lepiceridae Hinton, 1936 |
| Genus: | Lepicerus Motschulsky, 1855 |
| Synonyms | |
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Species
edit- Lepicerus bufo (Hinton, 1936)
- Lepicerus inaequalis Motschulsky, 1855
- Lepicerus pichilingue Flowers, Shepard & Troya, 2010
Three additional species are known from the Late Cretaceous (Cenomanian) as inclusions in Burmese amber from Myanmar.
- †Lepicerus georissoides (Kirejtshuk and Poinar, 2006) [3]
- †Lepicerus mumia Jałoszyński & Yamamoto, 2017 [4]
- †Lepicerus pretiosus (Kirejtshuk and Poinar, 2013)[5]
Extinct Lepiceridae genera
edit- †Lepiceratus Jałoszyński et al. 2020[2] Cenomanian, Burmese amber, Myanmar
References
edit- ^ 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
- ^ a b 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
- ^ Kirejtshuk, A.G.; Poinar, G. Jr. (2006). "Haplochelidae, a new family of Cretaceous beetles (Coleoptera: Myxophaga) from Burmese amber". Proceedings of the Entomological Society of Washington. 108: 155–164.
- ^ 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.
- ^ 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
Wikispecies has information related to Lepicerus.
External links
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