Antireicheia Basilewsky 1951
Creators: name: Grebennikov, Vasily V.
name: Bulirsch, Petr
name: Magrini, Paolo
Publisher: name: Zenodo
Year: 2009
Subjects: Biodiversity
Taxonomy
Animalia
Arthropoda
Insecta
Coleoptera
Carabidae
Antireicheia

description: Genus Antireicheia Basilewsky, 1951
Type species: Reicheia promontorii Péringuey, 1896, original designation.
= Afroreicheia Jeannel, 1957 (type species Antireicheia jeanneli Basilewsky, 1951, original designation; genus synonymised by Bulirsch & Magrini, 2007: 17).
Description. Small (body length 1.5–4.5 mm), rusty brown, endogean, flightless Clivinini. Head with oblique impressions on clypeus; Y-shaped dorsal medial keel on frons from short and blunt to missing; eyes completely absent (Figs. 23, right arrow –25), without externally visible facets, ocular area of each gena with trace of differently pigmented field representing eye remnants; genal hind angles from obtuse (Fig. 1) to almost rectangular (Fig. 24); vertex usually more or less reticulate (Figs. 24, 25); antennae with antennomeres 6–10 about as wide as long, never distinctly elongated (Fig. 27); apical maxillary palpomeres securiform (Fig.
25, arrow). Pronotum with sides slightly or distinctly rounded in dorsal view (Fig. 27); variously narrowed anteriorly; posterior angles broadly rounded; reflexed lateral margin entire (Fig. 28, upper arrow), extending from mostly rounded and obtuse anterior angles to base as prebasal groove; prebasal groove in some species fine and poorly visible; posterior median part of pronotal base mostly small, faintly protruding (Fig. 27, right arrow), not separated from disk by distinct furrow; with 2 pairs of lateral setiferous punctures and no discal/ sublateral setae; median line distinctly impressed posteriorly; anterior transverse impression very fine or absent; posterior part of episterna visible from above (Fig. 27, left arrow). Elytra with anterior angles bearing 0 to 5 humeral teeth (Fig. 28, lower arrow), rarely with serration in anterior part (Fig. 29, upper arrow) extending sometimes to elytral apex; stria of elytral punctures gradually disappearing apically (Fig. 27); elytra with 0 to 4 relatively small dorsal setiferous punctures on third interval, other intervals without punctures. Last visible ventrite in males slightly reticulate in apical half; in females moderately reticulate in apical twothirds (Fig. 29, lower arrow). Aedeagus as in Figs. 2, 3, 7, 8, 12, 13, 18, 19; parameres as in Figs. 4, 9, 14, 20, bi- or trisetose; stylomeres as in Figs. 5, 10, 16, 22.
Along with the generic Antireicheia features, all four new Cameroonian species described below have the following features in common: head with an indistinctly emarginated anterior clypeal margin (Fig. 23, left arrow), with frontal facial furrows and oblique impressions deep and broad, latter with very short and blunt indistinct posterior keel, with neck broad and slightly diverging posteriad; pronotum laterally moderately vaulted, with indistinct anterior and moderately impressed median impression, with lateral margin finely impressed up to base, with small, slightly protruded flange (basal part of pronotum); elytra laterally moderately vaulted, not distinctly flattened, elytral base with distinct BSP and without basal tubercle, with elytral sutures deeply depressed basally; fore tibia and surface of last abdominal ventrite in both sexes without specific differences.
Diagnosis. The genus Antireicheia can be distinguished from all of the Palearctic Reicheiina mainly by the presence of 0 to 4 DSP on the third elytral interval. Unlike Antireicheia, Palearctic species have several setae minimally on intervals 3, 5, and occasionally, on intervals 2 to 7. Species of the genus Antireicheia differ from those belonging to the genera Reicheadella Reitter, 1913, Chaetomargoreicheia Magrini et Bulirsch, 2005, Laoreicheia Balkenohl, 2005 and Dimorphoreicheia Magrini, Fancello et Leo, 2002 by lacking discal and sublateral punctures on the pronotum. The distinct pronotal prebasal groove and 0–4 dorsal setiferous punctures in interval 3 only differentiate Antireicheia species from those of the genus Reicheia recorded from Northern Africa (Algeria, Tunis), although both Reicheia and Antireicheia can hardly be differentiated from one another. Antireicheia differs from the monotypic genus Kenyoreicheia recently described from the Kenyan Aberdare Mts. by the shape of the stylomeres and pronotum (see Bulirsch & Magrini, 2007).
Composition and geographical distribution. Including the four new species described below, the genus Antireicheia consists of 47 species with seven subspecies. It is known from Madagascar (16 species with two subspecies), South Africa (Western and Eastern Cape provinces; 10 species), East Africa (Uluguru and Usambara mountains in Tanzania and the lake Kivu region on the Rwanda / DRC border; 17 species with five subspecies) and West Africa (Cameroon highlands: four new species). Péringuey (1896) described the first Antireicheia species from the Cape Town area; other species descriptions followed more than half century later (Basilewsky 1951a, b, 1953, 1960, 1962, 1973, 1976, 1980; Jeannel 1957, 1958; Bulirsch et al. 2005; Bulirsch & Magrini 2006, 2007). An aberrant Antireicheia margolata Balkenohl, 2005 has been described from Vietnam, although, as stated by the author, this species is most likely not congeneric with the rest of the genus. Basilewsky (1980: 294) stated that no Reicheiina were known from the geologically more recent highlands of the Ruwenzori Range, Mt. Elgon, Mt. Kenya and Mt. Kilimanjaro, although he did not exclude their subsequent discoveries in Ethiopian highlands (i.e. Bale Mts.).
Monophyly and phylogenetic relationships. Monophyly of the genus Antireicheia has never been demonstrated and the genus is defined by a combination of morphological similarities and by the Afrotropical origin of the included species. Synonymisation of Afroreicheia with Antireicheia was an attempt to make the resulting taxon larger monophyletic (Bulirsch & Magrini 2007), although its monophyly is still far from being clearly demonstrated.
Three former “ Afroreicheia ” species from Madagascar and two Antireicheia from East Africa pose taxonomic difficulties. Madagascan Antireicheia elongata Jeannel, 1958 is morphologically much different from all African Reicheiina, and probably not congeneric with other Afrotropical Reicheiina. Antireicheia bonsae (Basilewsky, 1973) from Madagascar, A. bergeri Basilewsky, 1976 and A. grebennikovi Bulirsch et Magrini, 2007, both from East Africa, differ from other Antireicheia species by having (A.) flange larger and more distinctly developed (although still less distinct than in Trilophidius Jeannel, 1957); (B.) flange separated from the rest of pronotum by a distinctly developed furrow and by (C.) elytral striae longer and effaced closer to the elytral apex. These three features make these three Antireicheia species resembling members of the genus Trilophidius, although still clearly distinguishable from the latter by the absence of functional eyes and by the reflexed margin of pronotum extending well beyond posterior setiferous puncture. Moreover, we did not study the type specimen of A. franzi Basilewsky, 1973, the only Afrotropical Reicheiina species not seen by us, and, therefore, its taxonomic status is unclear.
If monophyletic, the genus Antireicheia is particularly close to, if at all different from, the genus Reicheia. A newly described and morphologically highly modified monotypic genus Kenyoreicheia Magrini & Bulirsch, 2007 from the Aberdare Mountains in Kenya is the only non- Antireicheia Afrotropical Reicheiina, which implicitly suggests paraphyly of the former genus in respect to Kenyoreicheia. Sister-group relationships or any other aspects of Antireicheia phylogeny have never been addressed.
Bionomics. No biological data other than collecting records are available for Antireicheia or, in fact, for any Reicheiina species. Adult beetles are obtained by floating soil sifted from the leaf litter or found under larger boulders sitting at least five centimetres deep in the soil (Basilewsky, 1980). Antireicheia species are predominantly found in forested montane areas, although all specimens of the presumably related K. aberdarensis Magrini & Bulirsch, 2007 were collected in the alpine zone of the Aberdare Range in Kenya. From these observations it seems plausible to assume that Antireicheia specimens inhabit soil crevices, although their more subtle biological preferences are unknown. Immature stages of Antireicheia, as well as any other Reicheiina, have never been described.
description: Published as part of Grebennikov, Vasily V., Bulirsch, Petr & Magrini, Paolo, 2009, Discovery of Antireicheia in Cameroon with description of four new species and discussion on phylogeny and distribution of endogean Reicheiina (Coleoptera: Carabidae: Scaritinae: Clivinini), pp. 1-14 in Zootaxa 2292 on pages 2-4, DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.275299