Ataenius brevis Fall, 1930

Schnepp, Kyle E. & Ashman, Krystal L., 2020, A new species of Ataenius Harold (Coleoptera: Scarabaeidae: Aphodiinae) from the southeastern United States, with a lectotype designation, Insecta Mundi 2020 (841), pp. 1-7 : 2

Ataenius brevis Fall, 1930

Figures 1–6 , 13 .

Ataenius brevis Fall 1930: 98 . Lectotype: MCZ, here designated, sex unknown.

Type material. Fall (1930) described Ataenius brevis from two specimens of undetermined sex from Pennsylvania collected by Henry Ulke. There are two specimens in the MCZ with typed and handwritten designation labels reading “ TYPE brevis” and “brevis PARATYPE Fall. 1930”. Fall gave no indication which specimen was the holotype and these designations may have been added later. We are here designating a specimen ( Fig. 1–5 ) with the following data ( Fig. 4 ) as the lectotype to fix the name to a single specimen: “Pen // Horn Coll / H // [underlined in red] TYPE / [handwritten] brevis // [on red] M. C. Z. / Type / [handwritten] 24767 // H. C. FALL / COLLECTION // Aug-Dec 2005 / MCZ Image / Database // MCZ-ENT / 00024767 // [on red] LECTOTYPE / Ataenius brevis Fall, 1930 / Designated by / Schnepp & Ashman, 2020”. The second specimen in the MCZ with the following data becomes a paralectotype: “Pen // [on red] [handwritten] brevis / PARATYPE / [handwritten] Fall. 1930 // Liebeck / Collection // MCZ-ENT / 00731922 // [on red] PARALECTOTYPE / Ataenius brevis Fall, 1930 / Designated by / Schnepp & Ashman, 2020”.

Fall’s original description is adequate to define A. brevis , however, Cartwright (1974) gave a thorough redescription. Both syntypes match these descriptions, therefore no redescription is given here.

Distribution. Ataenius brevis appears to be restricted to the Appalachian region of eastern North America ( Fig. 13 ). Label data indicate specimens have been collected in the following situations: “Berlesed from leaf litter”, “Berlese forest floor”, “under leaves in path”, “under leaves”, “leaf litter”, “under log”, “on beach”, “Lindgren funnel trap”, and “in ice Jan. thaw”.

Remarks. Specimens collected by month: January (1), March (4), April (9), May (55), June (69), July (59), August (28), September (5), October (3), November (1).

Figures

Figures 1–6. Ataenius brevis Fall. 1) Dorsal view of lectotype. 2) Ventral view of lectotype. 3) Frontal view of lectotype.4) Lectotype labels. 5) Ventral view of metatibia of lectotype, arrow indicates outlined accessory spine. 6) Male genitalia, specimen from Citico, Tennessee.

Figures 13–14. Distribution of Ataenius brevis and Ataenius thomasi in the southeastern United States. 13) Ataenius brevis Fall. 14) Ataenius thomasi, new species.