Ancyronyx patrolus Freitag and Jäch, 2007

Freitag, Hendrik & Kodada, Ján, 2017, A taxonomic review of the genus Ancyronyx Erichson, 1847 from Sulawesi (Insecta: Coleoptera: Elmidae), Journal of Natural History (J. Nat. Hist.) 51 (9 - 10), pp. 561-606 : 572

Ancyronyx patrolus Freitag and Jäch, 2007 species-group

Primarily a moderately diverse group from Southeast Asia, with nine species described to date, their distribution is restricted to several islands of the Philippines ( Jäch et al. 2016). Eight new species from Sulawesi are described herein. Some of the species, particularly of the Ancyronyx minerva Freitag and Jäch, 2007 subgroup, e.g. A. minerva , A. sophiemarie Jäch, 2004 , A. tamaraw Freitag, 2013 and A. minutulus Freitag and Jäch, 2007 are known mainly or only as wingless specimens. Some of them are reported only from single small to mediumsized islands and seem to be endemic there. Life history and immature stages for most of these species from the Philippines are well known ( Freitag and Balke 2011; Freitag 2013).

The real diversity of this species-group is not well understood yet, and probably many species from numerous islands of the Philippines, Greater and Lesser Sunda remain to be discovered and described. Phylogenetic relationships within species are unresolved yet, but recent studies involving DNA sequencing mainly of cox1, rather indicate a polyphyletic origin ( Freitag and Balke 2011; Freitag 2013), and so characters defining the group need to be tested and probably redefined.