A Taxonomic Study On The Genus Quedius Of China (Coleoptera: Staphylinidae: Staphylininae)

Staphylinidae is one of the largest family in Coleoptera, they occupy a wide variety of habitats and have a wide range of food-habits. They are essentially carnivorous (insect feeder), but some groups have become evolved as mycophagous, coprophagous, carpophagous, pollinophagous and so on. Some species have adapted to a parasitism of mammals. Their prosperity is inevitably causing direct interaction between them and mankind.Quedius is one of the largest genera of the subfamily Staphylininae in the family Staphylinidae. It was established by Stephens in 1829; type species Staphylinus levicollis Brulle. Up to the present 794 species of the genus have been known from the world. They are mainly distributed in the Palaearctic, Oriental, Nearctic, Australian, Afrotropical Region. There are 126 species known in China, of which 89 in the Mainland, 34in Taiwan and 3 in both Mainland and Taiwan.In China, however, taxonomic study on this genus is relatively behind and only some of scholars separately studied on this field. Up to the present, systematic works concerning Chinese Quedius has not been made, about 99 percent of the Chinese known species were described by foreign scholars and the type specimens were deposited in foreign countries. For these reasons, it became difficulty for us to study Chinese Quedius fauna.This study was based on the examinations of over 278 specimens, which were collected from a lot of places in China such as Zhejiang, Shaanxi, Yunan, Sichuan, Guizhou, Shanxi, Xizang, Jiangxi,Heilongjiang , Shanghai and so on. The results of my research is summarized as follows:1. This paper was the first systematic study of the genus Quedius of China.2. In the present paper, 23 Chinese species of the genus were recognized, of which 9 species were described as new to science, 1 species new to China.3. All the species were described in detail, and their sexual characters were illustrated. The color photos for every species were also provided. The history review, collecting techniques, and major diagnostic characters of the genus were discussed.4. The key to the species of the genus were presented.5. A catalog of the genus Quedius of world was given.6. A database of all the known species of the genus Quedius in the world was built.