Two new species of the genus Anthroherpon Reitter, 1889 from northern Montenegro with notes on the “A. ganglbaueri” species group (Coleoptera: Leiodidae: Leptodirini)

Abstract

Two new species of Anthroherpon belonging to the "ganglbaueri" species group are described from northern Montenegro: Anthroherpon sinjajevina n. sp. and Anthroherpon cecai n. sp. Based on morphological investigations of other species of this group, we elevate A. udrzali Giachino & Vailati from subspecies to species rank, and suggest the synonymy of A. brckoensis Giachino & Guéorguiev with A ganglbaueri alticola Knirsch. An identification key of the ganglbaueri species group (sensu Guéorguiev, 1990) is given and the distributions of species and subspecies are mapped and discussed.

The cave beetle genus Anthroherpon is polyphyletic; molecular phylogenetics and description of Graciliella n. gen. (Leiodidae, Leptodirini)

“…Species belonging to this morphological type have extremely long appendages, extremely elongated head and pronotum, hemispherical elytra, and are fully anophthalmic. The subtribe Anthroherponina com-prises taxa of exclusively leptodiroid morphological type, showing the most pronounced troglomorphic characters among Leptodirini (Njunjić et al, 2015). To date, taxonomic studies of Anthroherponina were based exclusively on morphological traits, but possible phenotypic convergence leaves these conclusions doubtful.…”

“…Most taxa were described in the late 19 th century and in the second half of the 20 th century, on a small number of specimens and without an explicit diagnosis, so many were subsequently synonymized. Moreover, the geographical distribution of some taxa is mysteriously disjunct (Njunjić et al, 2015).…”

On the diversity of subterranean beetles of the Dinarides: new leiodid taxa (Coleoptera: Leiodidae) from Serbia

“…Highly-evolved scaphoid taxa are the representatives of the genus Remyella Jeannel, 1931, which are distributed in a narrow Dinaric area in southwestern Serbia and northeastern Montenegro (Njunjić et al 2017). Interestingly, no highly-evolved leptodiroid taxa are known from Serbia so far, although some species of Anthroherpon Reitter, 1889 inhabit certain areas close to the country's border (Njunjić et al 2015). Most leiodid taxa from Serbia are associated with the Central Dinarides, a smaller amount with the Inner Dinarides, while the Carpathian-Balkan mountain system is characterized by only a few taxa (e.g., the endemic genus Pseudobathyscidius Karaman, 1964 and the endemic Magdelainella subgenus Derveniella Pavićević & Perreau, 2008) (Perreau 2015;Hlaváč et al 2017).…”