Agacerus, AND ITS ALLIES

Li, Liang & Zhou, Hong-Zhang, 2011, Revision and phylogenetic assessment of the rove beetle genus Pseudohesperus Hayashi, with broad reference to the subtribe Philonthina (Coleoptera: Staphylinidae: Staphylinini), Zoological Journal of the Linnean Society 163 (3), pp. 679-722 : 692

THE GENUS AGACERUS AND ITS ALLIES

The phylogenetic analysis revealed the Oriental genus Agacerus Fauvel, 1895 and the African genus Moeocerus Fauvel, 1899 to be sister groups, and together they were sister to the African genus Glyphesthus Kraatz, 1858 . These relationships were supported by high support scores and were consistent with the recent study based on more limited taxa sampling of Philonthina by Solodovnikov & Schomann (2009). The genus Taxiplagus Bernhauer, 1915 (= Prionophilonthus Scheerpeltz, 1974 , = Quediosoma Cameron, 1926 ), also reported to occur in the Ethiopian region ( Smetana, 2004), appeared as closely related to Agacerus , Moeocerus , and Glyphesthus in the present analysis, but with low support values. Morphologically, the character states that Taxiplagus shares with Agacerus , Moeocerus , and Glyphesthus are those related to the shape of the pronotal hypomeron and mesoventrite. However, many other character states including arrangement of antennal pubescence, shape of mouthparts, elytral sub-basal ridge, and posterior margin of sternites VI–VIII are completely different. The close relationship of Taxiplagus and Agacerus , Moeocerus , and Glyphesthus is thus only tentative, as we examined only a single representative of Taxiplagus from the Oriental region.