Revision of the North American Species of Amblyderus with a Checklist of the World Species (Coleoptera: Anthicidae)

The North American species of Amblyderus are revised, and a key is provided. In Amblyderus Pic is placed as a new synonym of Amblyderus. Six species are redescribed, and one new species, A. owyhee Chandler, is described from the Columbia River Plateau. A checklist of the world species and their distribu tions is included. Lectotypes for Anthicus granularis LeConte, Anthicus pallens LeConte, Amblyderus obesus Casey, Amblyderus albicans Casey and Amblyderus parviceps Casey are designated. The record of Amblyderus from Puerto Rico is found to be due to a misspelling of the genus Amblycerus Thunberg (Family Chrysomelidae, Bruchinae). Amblyderus was proposed originally by LaFert?-S?nect?re (1849a) for two species of Anthicidae from northern Africa. Currently this genus contains 32 species found primarily in coastal dunes along the shores of the Mediterranean region, Africa, India, Sri Lanka, and North America, but also is known from dry inland dune areas in central Africa, India, and now, North America (Weissmann and Kondratieff, 1999). Amblyderus was first recognized in North America by Casey (1895), who provided the only revision of the genus. He described six species and added two species described by LeConte (1850) in Anthicus Paykull, which had been found along the shores of Lake Superior. There has been little subsequent work directly treating members of this genus. The genus has been treated in a key to the genera of North American Anthicidae by Werner (1964), and Downie and Arnett (1996) did provide a key to the species in Northeastern North America. A brief note by Werner (1975) placed four of Casey's names as synonyms, assigning one each to the resulting four valid species. Weissmann and Kondratieff (1999) recently described two species from Great Sand Dunes National Monument in Colorado, bringing the number of species in North America to six. These are the first North American species known to be restricted to a dune complex not associated with riverine, marine, or lake systems. Wolcott (1936:210; 1951:301) reported an Amblyderus species that Scientific Publication Number 2011 of the New Hampshire Agricul tural Experiment Station This content downloaded from 157.55.39.105 on Fri, 07 Oct 2016 04:31:42 UTC All use subject to http://about.jstor.org/terms 270 REVISION OF AMBLYDERUS had been found on the flowers of Randia mitis (= Randta aculeatus L.) and other trees by R. G. Oakley at Ponce, Puerto Rico. Werner (1983:232) questioned this extraordinary discovery, as an association with flow ers or trees has never been encountered for any members of this genus. However, he could not find the specimens to confirm this identifica tion. Michael A. Ivie (Montana State University) has spent consider able time working with the beetle fauna of the Caribbean. He noted (pers. comm.) that the Oakley specimens were sent to the National Museum of Natural History (Washington, D.C) for identification, that Werner had already searched that collection, and that no Amblyderus specimens taken by Oakley could be found. However, he noticed that Kingsolver (1970) reported specimens from the National Museum of Natural History of his newly described species, Amblycerus schw?rzt Kingsolver (Bruchinae, Chrysomelidae), with the appropriate label information (Puerto Rico, Ponce, Sauri Finca, Aug. 8,1931, in flowers of Randia aculeata L., R. G. Oakley). Another species, Amblycerus cerdanicola Kingsolver (loc. cit.), is also at the National Museum of Natural History with appropriate label information, but was taken on flowers of Cordia probably the "other flowers" originally mentioned by Wolcott. Though Wolcott had to have had the identification slips for these species (as Amblycerus sp., since they were not described species at that time) sent to him before he published his lists of the Puerto Rican fauna (Wolcott, 1936,1951), he does not mention them in the bruchine records. Therefore, the record of Amblyderus from Puerto Rico seems to be based on a misspelling for Amblycerus Thunberg, a member of the bruchine Chrysomelidae. I have been identifying members of Amblyderus for over twenty years, and the distributions of the eastern species are now recognized to be much broader than recorded in the literature. Since Amblyderus has not been revised since Casey (1895), I thought it time to place the two new species described by Weissmann and Kondratieff and a new species described here within the context of a revision of the North American taxa. This leaves only Cyclodinus LaFert?-S?nect?re {-Thicanus Casey) as the last North American genus that has not been examined since Casey's (1895) treatment of the North American fauna.