''Aulacothorax'' is a genus of
leaf beetle
The beetle family Chrysomelidae, commonly known as leaf beetles, includes over 37,000 (and probably at least 50,000) species in more than 2,500 genera, making it one of the largest and most commonly encountered of all beetle families. Numerous s ...
s in the family
Chrysomelidae
The beetle family Chrysomelidae, commonly known as leaf beetles, includes over 37,000 (and probably at least 50,000) species in more than 2,500 genera, making it one of the largest and most commonly encountered of all beetle families. Numerous s ...
. There are currently 51 described species in ''Aulacothorax'' found worldwide, 40 of which are found in the
Indomalayan realm
The Indomalayan realm is one of the eight biogeographic realms. It extends across most of South and Southeast Asia and into the southern parts of East Asia.
Also called the Oriental realm by biogeographers, Indomalaya spreads all over the Ind ...
.
Historically considered a problematic member of the tribe Alticini (the
flea beetle
The flea beetle is any small, jumping beetle of the leaf beetle family (Chrysomelidae) that is part of the tribe (biology), tribe Alticini, which is part of the subfamily Galerucinae. Historically the flea beetles were classified as their own ...
s), the genus is now classified in its own tribe, Serraticollini.
History of research
The genus was originally created in 1858 for a single species described from
Tahiti
Tahiti (; Tahitian language, Tahitian , ; ) is the largest island of the Windward Islands (Society Islands), Windward group of the Society Islands in French Polynesia, an overseas collectivity of France. It is located in the central part of t ...
, ''Aulacothorax exilis'', which was placed in
Scydmaenidae (now considered a subfamily of
Staphylinidae
The rove beetles are a family (biology), family (Staphylinidae) of beetles, primarily distinguished by their short elytra (wing covers) that typically leave more than half of their abdominal segments exposed. With over 66,000 species in thousand ...
). Recently, the
holotype
A holotype (Latin: ''holotypus'') is a single physical example (or illustration) of an organism used when the species (or lower-ranked taxon) was formally described. It is either the single such physical example (or illustration) or one of s ...
of this species was rediscovered in the collections of the
Swedish Museum of Natural History
The Swedish Museum of Natural History (), in Stockholm, is one of two major museums of natural history in Sweden, the other one being located in Gothenburg.
The museum was founded in 1819 by the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, but goes bac ...
, and it was found to belong to the genus ''Orthaltica''. ''Aulacothorax'' is the earliest available name for the genus, so the genus ''Orthaltica'' was formally placed in synonymy with it in 2017.
Historically, the genus ''Aulacothorax'' (or ''Orthaltica'') was classified as a member of the subfamily Alticinae, later re-ranked as a tribe (Alticini) of the subfamily
Galerucinae
The Galerucinae are a large subfamily of the leaf beetles (Chrysomelidae), containing about 15,000 species in more than 1000 genera, of which about 500 genera and about 8000 species make up the flea beetle tribe Alticini.
The division into tr ...
, based on the presence of enlarged
femora
The femur (; : femurs or femora ), or thigh bone is the only bone in the thigh — the region of the lower limb between the hip and the knee. In many four-legged animals the femur is the upper bone of the hindleg.
The top of the femur fits in ...
in the hind legs. Later studies determined that these enlarged femora lack the metafemoral spring, an internal structure found in the hind leg femora of flea beetles that allows them to jump,
and members of ''Aulacothorax'' are incapable of jumping.
A phylogenetic study by Douglas et al. (2023) suggested that ''Aulacothorax'' should be separated from Alticini and classified within its own tribe, Serraticollini.
Selected species
* ''
Aulacothorax arabicus''
(Medvedev, 1997)
* ''
Aulacothorax australis''
(Konstantinov, 1995)
* ''
Aulacothorax bakeri''
(Konstantinov, 1995)
* ''
Aulacothorax borneoensis''
(Konstantinov, 1995)
* ''
Aulacothorax chibi''
(Takizawa, 2017)
* ''
Aulacothorax coomani''
(Laboissiere, 1933)
* ''
Aulacothorax copalinus''
(Fabricius, 1801)
* ''
Aulacothorax exilis''
Boheman, 1858
* ''
Aulacothorax kirejtshuki''
(Konstantinov, 1995)
* ''
Aulacothorax konstantinovi''
(Takizawa, 2017)
* ''
Aulacothorax melinus''
(Horn, 1889) (poison ivy leaf beetle)
* ''
Aulacothorax mindanaoensis''
(Konstantinov, 1995)
* ''
Aulacothorax minutiusculus''
(Csiki, 1939)
* ''
Aulacothorax okinawanus''
(Gressitt and Kimoto, 1966)
* ''
Aulacothorax orientalis''
(Konstantinov, 1995)
* ''
Aulacothorax pahangi''
(Konstantinov, 1995)
* ''
Aulacothorax parkeri''
(B. White, 1942)
* ''
Aulacothorax rangoonensis''
(Konstantinov, 1995)
* ''
Aulacothorax rata''
(Takizawa, 2017)
* ''
Aulacothorax recticollis''
(J. L. LeConte, 1861)
* ''
Aulacothorax sabahcola''
(Takizawa, 2017)
* ''
Aulacothorax schereri''
(Takizawa, 2017)
* ''
Aulacothorax syzygium''
(Prathapan & Konstantinov, 2013)
* ''
Aulacothorax terminalia''
(Prathapan & Konstantinov, 2013)
* ''
Aulacothorax tuberculatus''
(Takizawa, 2017)
* ''
Aulacothorax visayanensis''
(Konstantinov, 1995)
References
Galerucinae
Chrysomelidae genera
Articles created by Qbugbot
Taxa named by Carl Henrik Boheman
{{Galerucinae-stub