Onthophagus capitatus Laporte, 1840

Ivie, Michael A. & Philips, Keith, 2008, Three new species of Canthonella Chapin from Hispaniola, with new records and Nomenclatural changes for West Indian dung beetles (Coleoptera: Scarabaeidae: Scarabaeinae), Zootaxa 1701, pp. 1-14 : 9

Onthophagus albicornis Palisot de Beauvois, 1805 and Onthophagus capitatus Laporte, 1840 , NEW STATUS

Matthews (1966) treated Onthophagus capitatus as a subspecies of Onthophagus albicornis . He noted that although the genitalia were identical, he had seen no intermediates between the two forms. At the time, he had seen only a few specimens of each, and thought that the geographic division was west ( Haiti) and east ( Dominican Republic). Since that time, hundreds of specimens have accumulated, and the status of these two populations as full species seems warranted. No intermediate forms have been observed, and the two seem to be allopatric vicariant species. Both species inhabit low elevation, open habitats, but Onthophagus albicornis occurs on the northern paleoisland in both countries north of the Lago Enriquillo depression, while Onthophagus capitatus also occurs in both countries but in the southern peninsula of Haiti and the Baoroco-LaSalle massif, extending north in Haiti as far a the Trou d’Eau mountains and the Cul de Sac Plain.