Cyclocephala Dejean, 1821

Moore, Matthew R., Cave, Ronald D. & Branham, Marc A., 2018, Synopsis of the cyclocephaline scarab beetles (Coleoptera, Scarabaeidae, Dynastinae), ZooKeys 745, pp. 1-99 : 49-50

Cyclocephala Dejean, 1821

Type species.

Scarabaeus amazonus Linnaeus, 1767: 551, subsequent designation by Casey (1915).

Valid taxa.

359 species and subspecies.

The speciose genus Cyclocephala contains over 350 taxa distributed throughout the Nearctic and Neotropical realms (Fig. 57). Cyclocephala contains the only adventive species in Cyclocephalini , with C. pasadenae and C. signaticollis established in Hawaii and Australia, respectively (Carne 1956, Jameson et al. 2009). The greatest number of Cyclocephala species is found in northern South America, but many endemic species occur in Meso- and Central America. Some Cyclocephala species are extremely geographically widespread. For example, C. lunulata occurs from the southwestern United States south to Argentina. In contrast, there are also cases of endemism in mainland species of the genus. The pollination mutualist C. jalapensis occurs only in a narrow band of habitat in eastern Mexico (Veracruz, Puebla, Oaxaca, Querétaro, and Hidalgo states) where its host plant Magnolia schiedeana Schltl. is found ( Dieringer and Delgado 1994, Dieringer and Espinosa 1994).

Cyclocephala is a difficult genus to diagnose due to its species richness, diversity of forms, and probable non-monophyly. Many of the character descriptions below are complicated by these factors. Cyclocephala species can be recognized by the following combination of characters: 1) dorsal coloration highly variable; unicolored black, green, or light brown, pronotum in some species cherry-red, light brown species often have complex maculae patterns of the pronotum and elytra; 2) body not anteroposteriorly compressed or dorsoventrally flattened; 3) clypeal apex variable; evenly rounded, parabolic, acute, emarginate, triemarginate, or nearly straight; 4) frons mesad of eyes with or without long, erect setae; 5) frontoclypeal suture complete or incomplete medially; 6) males with anterolateral margin of mandibles weakly toothed or not; 7) mandibular molar area with rows of circular micropunctures either present or absent; 8) apical margin of mentum weakly emarginated or broadly and deeply emarginated; 9) galea of the maxilla well-developed [with or without teeth] or reduced into a rounded process; 10) galea of the maxilla dorsoventrally flattened or not; 10) galea of maxilla on inner surface variable (not all character states are given here); with 3 fused basal teeth, a free median tooth, and 2 fused apical teeth (3-1-2 arrangement) (in C. amazona -like species and former Mimeoma , the galea are flattened and the basal tooth is compressed and rotated, giving the appearance of being bidentate with the third tooth shifted dorsally); with 2 fused basal tooth and 2 fused apical teeth (2-0-2 arrangement); with 2 fused basal teeth, 1 middle tooth, and 2 fused apical teeth (2-1-2 arrangement); 11) pronotum at base with incomplete or complete marginal bead; 12) pronotum on anterolateral portions with or without long, erect setae; 13) males with 2 or 3 protibial teeth, females always with 3; 14) protibial spur straight to weakly deflexed or strongly decurved; 15) males with inner protarsal claw enlarged and narrowly cleft at apex or entire at apex; 16) mesocoxae widely separated or nearly touching, contiguous; 17) metatibiae with or without distal, transverse carinae; 18) metacoxae with lateral edge perpendicular to ventral surface or with lateral edge angled underneath the ventral surface; 19) anterior edge of hindwing distal to apical hinge lacking setae and with produced, membranous border or lacking membranous border and with decumbent setae ( C. cribrata species-group); 20) vein RA with 2 rows of pegs extending distally nearly to margin of apical hinge.