Macrelmis

Passos, Maria Inês Silva Dos, Miranda, Gustavo Silva De & Nessimian, Jorge Luiz, 2015, Three new species of Macrelmis Motschulsky (Coleoptera: Elmidae: Elminae) from Southeastern Brazil with new definition of species groups to the genus, Zootaxa 4058 (2), pp. 195-210 : 201

Macrelmis species groups

The male genitalia of Macrelmis has been underestimated in its taxonomic use. Hinton (1940) already stated that the male genitalia has important characters to identify and classify species. The use of paramere and aedeagus characters tends to lead to less equivocal identification due to its stable morphology. So, we propose a new definition for the species group based mainly on male genitalia, but also including pronotal, elytral and leg characters, when possible (see Table 1). This way, the groups established by Hinton and other authors are reformulated and new groups are proposed. They are presented in alphabetical order.