Lionepha Explained

Lionepha is a genus of ground beetles in the family Carabidae. There are about 11 described species in Lionepha. Members of the genus are found in western North America from Alaska in the north, south to southern California and east to Colorado. The genus is morphologically similar to Bembidion, however they are genetically quite distinct.^[1]

Species

There are currently 11 described species in Lionepha divided into two groups:

L. erasa group:

• Lionepha australerasa
• Lionepha casta (Casey, 1918)
• Lionepha disjuncta (Lindroth, 1963)
• Lionepha erasa (LeConte, 1859)
• Lionepha kavanaughi
• Lionepha lindrothi
• Lionepha probata

L. osculans group:

• Lionepha osculans (Casey, 1918)
• Lionepha pseudoerasa (Lindroth, 1963)
• Lionepha sequoiae (Lindroth, 1963)
• Lionepha tuulukwa

Synonyms

The following is a list of selected synonyms:

Bembidion brumale is a synonym of Lionepha casta.

Lionepha erasa has multiple junior synonyms:^[2]

• Lionepha chintimini (Erwin & Kavanaugh, 1981)
• Lionepha lindrothella (Erwin & Kavanaugh, 1981)
• Lionepha lummi (Erwin & Kavanaugh, 1981)

Additionally, many species were formerly placed in the genus Bembidion, but later moved to Lionepha on the basis of genetic evidence.

Further reading

• Book: Catalogue of Palaearctic Coleoptera, Volume 1: Archostemata - Myxophaga - Adephaga. 2017. Lobl . I.. Smetana . A.. Apollo Books. 978-90-04-33029-0.

Notes and References

1. Maddison, David R., and John S. Sproul. "Species delimitation, classical taxonomy and genome skimming: a review of the ground beetle genus Lionepha (Coleoptera: Carabidae)." Zoological Journal of the Linnean Society 189.4 (2020): 1313-1358.
2. Web site: Maddison. David. 2020-04-03. Ten years later: the Lionepha paper is out. 2021-04-24. The Subulate Palpomere. en.