A Taxonomic Study On The Genus Megarthrus (Coleoptera: Staphylinidae: Proteininae) Of China

Staphylinidae is one of the largest families 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 parasitism of mammals.Their diversity is inevitably causing direct interaction between them and mankind.Megarthrus is the biggest genus of the subfamily Proteininae in the family Staphylinidae.It was established by Curtis in 1829,and Staphylinus depressus Paykull was designated as the type species for the genus.Up to the present,141 species of the genus have been known from the world.They mainly distributed in the Palaearctic, Oriental and Africa Region.To this day,there are 7 species known in China,of which are all in mainland.In world,there had not been a systematic study until Coccodoro did it.In China, however,taxonomic study on this genus is relatively behind and only some of scholars separately studied in this field.Up to the present,systematic works concerning Chinese Megarthrus has not been made.Furthermore,there are abundant and valuable resource in China.For these reasons,it became important for us to study Chinese Megarthrus fauna.This study was based on the examinations of over 400 specimens,which were collected from a lot of places in China such as Zhejiang,Sichuan,Wuhan,and so on. The results of my research is summarized as follows:1.This paper was the first systematic study of the genus Megarthrus of China.2.In the present paper,27 Chinese species of the genus were recognized,of which 21 species were described as new to science.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 was presented.5.A catalog of the genus Megarthrus of world was given.6.A database of all the known species of the genus Megarthrus in the world was built.