Lipernes Waterhouse 1879
Creators: name: Kusy, Dominik
name: Motyka, Michal
name: Fusek, Lukas
name: Li, Yun
name: Bocek, Matej
name: Bilkova, Renata
name: Ruskova, Michaela
name: Bocak, Ladislav
Publisher: name: Zenodo
Year: 2021
Subjects: Biodiversity
Taxonomy
Animalia
Arthropoda
Insecta
Coleoptera
Lycidae
Lipernes

description: Lipernes Waterhouse 1879: 9.   
 Type species: Lipernes perspectus Waterhouse, 1879.   
 Diagnosis   
 L i p e r n e s i s s i m i l a r t o Ly c o s t o m u s i n g e n e r a l appearance (Fig. 7A–O), and these genera differ in the shape of male genitalia. Lipernes has a robust phallus with simple apex or vertical cleft (Fig. 7 AA–AR).   
 Redescription   
 Adults: Body slender. Head mostly concealed by pronotum, rostrate. Rostrum short to moderately long, often very stout. Pronotum widest at base, with rectangular to slightly projected posterior angles, variable in shape. Elytra without sexual dimorphism, moderately dilated posteriorly in both sexes, with four indistinct costae in each elytron (Fig. 7A–O, R–U).   
 fernandezi (Dugès), general appearance, male. T, ditto, female. U, Rhyncheros sp., general appearance, male. V, Rhyncheros loripes (Chevrolat), general appearance, male. W, Rhyncheros sp. 1. X, Rhyncheros sp. 3, male. Y, N. fernandezi, head and prothorax, dorsally. Z, ditto, ventrally. AA, Rhyncheros loripes (Chevrolat); head and prothorax, ventrally. AB–AG, male genitalia. AB, N. arizonensis (Green), ventrally. AC, N. fernandezi (Dugès), dorsally. AD, ditto, laterally. AE, Rhyncheros sp. 1, laterally. AF, ditto, ventrally. AG, Rhyncheros sp. 3, dorsally. Scale bars: 3 mm (A, S, X); 1 mm (C); 0.5 mm (B, D– R, Y–AG).   
Male genitalia without any thorns, with membranous ventral part apically; simple apex and in most species dilated basally, with translucent windows at base and ventral sclerotized keel (Fig. 7 AA–AR).  
 Distribution   
East Palaearctic and Oriental regions (Fig. 5A).  
 Remarks   
 The concept of Lycostomus has been very wide and merged all Nearctic, Neotropical, Palaearctic and Oriental Lycini without pronounced sexual polymorphism in the shape of elytra (Figs 6U–X, 7A–Q). The Neotropical and Nearctic species have to be transferred from Lycostomus to Rhyncheros. Palaearctic and Oriental species represent two independent lineages and must be placed in redefined Lipernes and Lycostomus. We found that the species of the deeply rooted Asian clade (Fig. 2) have genitalia similar to those of Lipernes perspectus Waterhouse, 1879. Therefore, we use the name Lipernes for the designation of this clade. Lipernes and Lycostomus occur sympatrically, and they can be distinguished only using male genitalia (Fig. 7 AA–AR). Their general appearance is similar; most species are red or red and black in colour (Figs 7A–Z, 8A–O). The length of the apical palpomere, which was originally used as a diagnostic character, is variable in Lipernes, as has been noted already by Kazantsev (1993).
description: Published as part of Kusy, Dominik, Motyka, Michal, Fusek, Lukas, Li, Yun, Bocek, Matej, Bilkova, Renata, Ruskova, Michaela & Bocak, Ladislav, 2021, Sexually dimorphic characters and shared aposematic patterns mislead the morphology-based classification of the Lycini (Coleoptera: Lycidae), pp. 902 in Zoological Journal of the Linnean Society 191 (3) on page 902, DOI: 10.1093/zoolinnean/zlaa055, http://zenodo.org/record/5299913