Myrmedonota Cameron, 1920

Eldridge, K. Taro, 2010, A new species of Myrmedonota Cameron from eastern Kansas (Coleoptera, Staphylinidae, Aleocharinae), ZooKeys 53, pp. 17-24 : 17-18

Myrmedonota Cameron, 1920

See Kistner (2003) and Pace (2009) for references and keys to species.

Type species.

Myrmedonota cingulata Cameron, 1920, by monotypy (pp. 272-273).

Diagnosis.

Members of the genus Myrmedonota may be separated from other genera of Lomechusini by the following combination of characters (partially adopted from Maruyama et al. 2008): 1) head dorsally subcircular, excluding mouth parts; 2) head lacking neck; 3) occipital suture complete; 4) antennae generalized, clavate and slightly laterally compressed; 5) pronotum with complete marginal line; 6) pronotum without depressions or macrosculpture; 7) body surface finely punctate; 8) abdomen with no horn-like ornamentation; 9) dorsal abdominal surface with sparse to moderate setation but never with dense setal cover, nor with thick macrosetae creating a bristle-like texture; 10) cardo partially overlapping stipes, ventrally; 11) lacinia and galea extremely elongate and parallel sided; 12) labial palpomeres I and III subequal in length and longer then palpomere II; 13) glossa bifid with each lobe housing two sensillate elements; 14) mentum trapeziform and almost as long as wide; 15) labrum with lateral apices rounded and extending apically beyond maximum midpoint; 16) apical lobe of paramere short; 17) vellum and velar sac of paramere large and extending past the maximum reach of apical lobe and partially concealing it.

In North America Myrmedonota most closely resembles the genus Pella , but can be separated from the later by the following combination of characters: 1) smaller size (<3.5 mm [ Maruyama et al. 2008]); 2) extremely elongate lacinia and galea; 3) mentum almost as long as wide.

New key to Myrmedonota species of America north of Mexico

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