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Species Ptomaphagus cavernicola

Ptomaphagus cavernicola Schwarz - Ptomaphagus cavernicola - female
Classification
Kingdom Animalia (Animals)
Phylum Arthropoda (Arthropods)
Subphylum Hexapoda (Hexapods)
Class Insecta (Insects)
Order Coleoptera (Beetles)
Suborder Polyphaga
No Taxon (Series Staphyliniformia)
Superfamily Staphylinoidea
Family Leiodidae (Round Fungus Beetles)
Subfamily Cholevinae (Small Carrion Beetles)
Genus Ptomaphagus
Species cavernicola (Ptomaphagus cavernicola)
Synonyms and other taxonomic changes
Ptomaphagus cavernicola Schwarz, 1898
Explanation of Names
cavernicola (L). 'cave dweller' (1)
Numbers
52 spp. n. of Mex. (2)
Range
c., se. US (TX, OK, AR, MO, IA, SC, FL) / Mex (Peck 1982)
Type Locality: Marble (=Marvel) Cave, Stone Co., Missouri
Habitat
frequent in caves
Life Cycle
In caves, P. cavernicola is most abundant upon feces of bats or raccoons, or upon dead bat carcasses. Occasionally it occurs on wet, rotten wood. (Barr 1963)
Remarks
This is a fully-eyed and functionally-winged species known (w/ one SC exception) only from caves in a largely disrupted but crescentric dist. from Mex. to IA to FL. (Peck 1973)
The lack of significant variation in the cave pop. may suggest that the dist. was achieved during and shortly after the Wisconsinan glacial, and that cave restriction occurred during the Recent. (Peck 1982)
Print References
Barr, T.C., Jr. 1963. Studies on the Cavernicole Ptomaphagus of the United States. (Coleoptera: Catopidae). Psyche 70: 50-58. Full Text
Peck, S.B. 1973. A systematic revision and the evolutionary biology of the Ptomaphagus (Adelops) beetles of North America (Coleoptera; Leiodidae; Catopinae), with emphasis on cave-inhabiting species. Bulletin of the Museum of Comparative Zoology, 145(2): 29-162.
Peck, S.B. 1982. New records of poorly known Ptomaphagus from Texas and the Ozarks (Coleoptera: Leiodidae: Cholevinae). The Coleopterists Bulletin 36(1): 109-111. JSTOR
Schwarz, E.A. 1898. A new cave-inhabiting silphid. Proceedings of the Entomological Society of Washington, 4: 57-58.
Works Cited
1.Dictionary of Word Roots and Combining Forms
Donald J. Borror. 1960. Mayfield Publishing Company.
2.American Beetles, Volume I: Archostemata, Myxophaga, Adephaga, Polyphaga: Staphyliniformia
Arnett, R.H., Jr., and M. C. Thomas. (eds.). 2000. CRC Press LLC, Boca Raton, FL.