Allopodini Franciscolo, 1964

Alekseev, Vitalii, Háva, Jiří & Bukejs, Andris, 2025, First adult of false flower beetle (Coleoptera: Scraptiidae) from mid-Cretaceous amber of northern Myanmar, with taxonomical notes and a checklist of fossil representatives of the family, Zootaxa 5723 (4), pp. 533-549 : 535

Tribe Allopodini Franciscolo, 1964

Taxonomic assignment. The specimen examined herein is assigned to the family Scraptiidae based on a combination of the following morphological characters: (1) body form elongate-oval with base of pronotum narrower than anterior elytral margin; (2) eyes emarginate anteriorly; (3) head constricted posteriorly; (4) antennae 11-segmented, filiform, not clubbed; (5) antennal insertions exposed from above; (6) apical maxillary palpomere elongate securiform whereas apical labial palpomere expanded with emargination apically; (7) pronotum laterally margined, lateral margination incomplete anteriorly; (8) pronotal disc with paired basal pits; (9) procoxae subcontiguous, projecting well below prosternum; (10) prosternal process incomplete, narrowed apically; (11) elytra irregularly punctate, without transverse strigae; (12) tarsi 5-5-4; (13) tibial spurs equal in length, well-developed, paired, seemingly pubescent but not serrate; (14) metatarsi linear, without distinctly lobed tarsomeres, penultimate pro- and mesotarsomeres weakly widened; and (15) abdomen with five ventrites and abdominal ventrite 1 not much longer than ventrite 2. Other families of Tenebrionoidea can be easily ruled out as close relatives of the studied Mesozoic specimen based on the combination of the above mentioned characters.

The studied amber specimen shows the combination of characters unequivocally corresponding to adults of the subfamily Scraptiinae ( Lawrence & Ślipiński 2010; Johnston et al. 2024): protrochantins exposed, head without distinct transverse carina separating occiput from posterior face of head capsule, temples present, emarginate eyes bearing interfacetal setae, pronotum and elytra without transverse strigae, pronotum with pair of basal pits or depressions, tibiae slender, and all tibial and tarsal segments lacking crenulation.

The subfamily Scraptiinae (recent) is divided into two tribes: Allopodini , characterized by the absence of a lobe on the penultimate metatarsomere, and Scraptiini , which possess a lobed third metatarsomere. The Mesozoic specimen under consideration is formally assigned to the extant tribe Allopodini , based on its linear metatarsi that lack lobed tarsomeres.