Adelita Maria Linzmeier

We provide a checklist of Cerambycidae species deposited in the Coleção Entomológica UFFS-RE, sampled with Malaise traps in forest remnants of southwestern region of the Brazilian state of Paraná. The subfamilies Cerambycinae, Lamiinae, Lepturinae, and Prioninae were recorded totaling 168 morphotypes, with 128 species identified. This study provides 14 new records of Cerambycidae species for the state of Paraná and one new record for Brazil (Callia paraguaya Galileo & Martins, 2002). This checklist is the first focused on cerambycids from the southwestern Paraná, contributing to fill in the knowledge of species distribution in the state and in Brazil, helping to reduce the Wallacean shortfall in cerambycid biodiversity.

The first comprehensive taxonomic survey of the leaf beetle fauna (Coleoptera: Chrysomelidae) of the oceanic volcanic Fernando de Noronha Archipelago, Pernambuco State, northeastern Brazil, is presented herein. A total of 17 taxa distributed across five subfamilies (Bruchinae, Cassidinae, Cryptocephalinae, Eumolpinae, and Galerucinae) are recorded, including the description of two new species of seed beetles: Megacerus ibiaiso Santos, Sampaio & Viana, sp. nov., and Sennius binotatus Viana & Ribeiro-Costa, sp. nov. In addition, 11 new distributional records are provided, along with corrections of previously misidentified specimens from the archipelago. For the taxa identified to the species level, information on host plant associations and natural enemies, when available, is included. The study also provides photographs of the external morphology of all taxa and the internal structures of the new species, as well as a map of the beaches and sampling trails.

All eight Monoplatina genera occurring in the West Indies are reviewed and illustrated. The following new combinations are proposed: Bonfilsus glabra (Blake, 1943), Hypolampsis antillarum (Bechyné, 1956), Hypolampsis aspila (Blake, 1943), Hypolampsis smithi (Jacoby, 1897), and Hypolampsis stenotrachela (Blake, 1944) and a subsequent combination is restored (Aedmon ferruginea (Suffrian, 1868)). The following two genera are excluded from the list of West Indian flea beetles: Homotyphus Clark, 1860 and Physimerus Clark, 1860.

Encathona gen. nov. is described to accommodate Aphthona lamprocyanea Blake, 1964. It is illustrated and compared to Acallepitrix Bechyné, Apraea Jacoby, Argopistes Motschulsky, Heikertingerella Csiki and Suffrianaltica Konstantinov and Linzmeier.

The immature stages of Hybosa acutangula Spaeth, 1913, member of the tribe Cassidini Gyllenhal, 1813, are described in detail and compared with other members of Cassidini and Ischyrosonychini Chapuis, 1875 species. The eggs, oothecae and first instar larvae are described for the first time. The morphology of the immatures of H. acutangula, unusual for the species of the Cassidini tribe, was the impulse that initiated the research. The result of the comparative analysis is the conclusion that the morphological features of the immature stages of H. acutangula are a mixture of characters observed in representatives of the Cassidini and Ischyrosonychini tribes. The similarity to Ischyrosonychini may only be convergence, but it cannot be ruled out that there is a separate phylogenetic lineage within Cassidini, represented by H. acutangula. Verification of this hypothesis requires further research.

Seasonally Dry Tropical Forests (SDTFs) have long suffered from chronic, intensive and extensive landscape transformations due to human activities, challenging biodiversity conservation in this biome. The Caatinga is the largest Neotropical SDTF, serving as an excellent model to understand how land use changes modulate ecological communities. In this study, we assessed the effects of landscape configuration and composition on the abundance and diversity of Chrysomeloidea in a region of Caatinga. We sampled beetles in 10 landscape units, in which we measured landscape configuration (patch size, edge density) and composition (landscape diversity, patch richness). Hill numbers (q0, q1, q2) were used to analyze the diversities of Chrysomeloidea. A total of 484 individuals belonging to 82 species were collected. Landscape configuration affected Chrysomeloidea assemblages with a positive correlation between edge density and Chrysomeloidea diversity. We provide a new perspective regarding the spatial distribution of Chrysomeloidea in Caatinga and conclude that landscape configuration, but not composition, directly affects Chrysomeloidea assemblages.

The leaf beetles (Chrysomelidae) are one of the most species-rich family of herbivorous beetles with about 45,000 species worldwide. Based on the contributions of chrysomelidologists to the Taxonomic Catalog of the Brazilian Fauna - CTFB, the family comprises 6,079 species in 562 genera of which 951 species are endemic to Brazil, standing out as the most diverse, representing 4.8% of the Brazilian fauna and 17.1% of the beetle species. Chrysomelidae has twelve subfamilies with nine reported to Brazil: Galerucinae, the richest with 1,916 species in 202 genera, followed by Cassidinae, Eumolpinae, Cryptocephalinae, Chrysomelinae, Bruchinae, Criocerinae, Lamprosomatinae and Sagrinae - this with only one species. Most of these subfamilies need urgent revision, since many species are poorly characterized, and polymorphism is frequent in some groups. The Czech couple Jan and Bohumila Bechyně were the researchers who described most species from Brazil. Furthermore, despite the increase of research on biology, natural history, host plants, genetics, ecology from 1980’s much still need to be investigated to better known the Brazilian Chrysomelidae and probably many new species are yet to be discovered.

In 2000, Cleide Costa published a paper presenting the state of knowledge of the Neotropical Coleopte ra, with a focus on the Brazilian fauna. Twenty-four years later, thanks to the development of the Coleoptera section of the Taxonomic Catalog of the Brazilian Fauna (CTFB - Catálogo Taxonômico da Fauna do Brasil) through the collaboration of 100 coleopterists from all over the globe, we can build on Costa’s work and present an updated overview of the state of knowledge of the beetles from Brazil. There are currently 35,699 species in 4,958 genera and 116 families known to occur in the country, including representatives of all extant suborders and superfamilies. Our data show that the Brazilian beetle fauna is the richest on the planet, concentrating 9% of the world species diversity, with some estimates accounting to up to 15% of the global total. The most diverse family in numbers of genera is Cerambycidae (1,056 genera), while in number of species it is Chrysomelidae (6,079 species). Conotrachelus Dejean, 1835 (Curculionidae) is the most species-rich genus, with 570 species. The French entomologist Maurice Pic is the author who has contributed the most to the naming of species recorded from Brazil, with 1,794 valid names in 36 families, whereas the Brazilians Ubirajara R. Martins and Maria Helena M. Galileo are the only ones among the top-ten authors to have named species in the 21^st century. Currently, approximately 144 new species of Brazilian beetles are described each year, and this average is projected to increase in the next decade to 180 species per year, or about one new Brazilian beetle every two days.

Pachyonychis paradoxus Clark, 1860 and Pachyonychus paradoxus Melsheimer, 1847 are two species of Alticini whose strikingly similar names have led to significant confusion in the past. Recent study of American Oedionychina Chapuis, 1875 raised doubts about the validity of the subtribal placement of Pachyonychis Clark. Although general characteristics put this genus in Oedionychina, other features, especially the unusual shape of the pronotum, suggested that this monotypic genus would belong in Monoplatina Chapuis, 1875 instead. To collect evidence for the validity of its current placement, we compared external and genitalic morphology of both species to other members of Monoplatina and Oedionychina. Here we present images and descriptions of female genitalia for both species and male genitalia of Pachyonychus paradoxus Melsheimer, to our knowledge the first of their kind, and we conclude that the evidence supports the current subtribal placement of these two genera. Lectotypes are designated for both Pachyonychis paradoxus Clark and Pachyonychus paradoxus Melsheimer.