A Taxonomic Study On The Genus Anotylus (Coleoptera: Staphylinidae: Oxytelinae) Of China

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.Anotylus is one of genera of the subfamily Oxytelinae in the family Staphylinidae. It was established by Thomson in 1859, and designated Oxytelus sculpturatus Gravenhorst as the type species for the genus. Up to the present, 356 species of the genus have been known from the world. They distributed cosmopolitan. There are 28 species known in China, of which 11 in the Mainland, 11 in Taiwan,5 in both Mainland and Taiwan, 1 not in detail.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 Anotylus has not been made. Nearly 90% 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 Anotylus fauna.This study was based on the examinations of over 1700 specimens, which were collected from a lot of places in China such as Shanghai, Zhejiang, Fujian, and so on. The results of my research is summarized as follows:1. This paper was the first systematic study of the genus Anotylus of China.2. In the present paper, 20 Chinese species of the genus were recognized, of which 10 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 Anotylus of world was given.6. A database of all the known species of the genus Anotylus in the world was built.