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West Indian Scarabaeoidea

Michael A. Ivie
Department of Entomology
Montana State University
Bozeman, MT 59717 USA

With assistance from Brett Ratcliffe, Henry Howden, Alan R. Gillogly, Mary Liz Jameson, David A. Carlson, Clark Scholtz...

The scarabs and their relatives are one of the most diverse and sought-after groups of beetles. On a world level, it contains some of the most beautiful coleopterans. The West Indian scarabaeoid fauna is moderately diverse, but is spectacularly lacking in colorful elements.

This superfamily is one of the best supported monophyletic groups in the Coleoptera. However, its internal classification is far less well established. The traditional view of 3 families (Lucanidae, Passalidae, and Scarabaeidae) cannot be supported by evidence of monophyly (Scholtz 1990, Browne and Scholtz 1995). In abandoning this classification, however, we are left without an obvious monophyletic classification short of recognizing only one family. The work of Clark Scholtz, Henry Howden, and their students, among others, have contributed to a widening body of data that will be critical to the eventual solution to this problem. In the meantime, several competing classifications have been used for this group. We here adopt that of Lawrence and Newton (1995), not because we feel it is any nearer perfect than some of the others, but because it represents a good compromise that is widely available and does not violate very many well-supported findings.

Lawrence and Newton (1995) recognize 13 families of Scarabaeoidea, 5 of which (Glaresidae, Pleocomidae, Diphyllostomatidae, Belohinidae, Glaphyridae) have not been found in the West Indies. West Indian Lucanidae are known only from fossils, but the other families are well represented in the modern fauna of the region.

For our purposes, the West Indies are comprised of the Greater and Lesser Antilles, the Bahamas, Turks and Caicos Islands and those islands in the Central Caribbean not on the mainland continental shelf. Continental countries extralimital to this area that are sometimes considered West Indian in a political sense, such as Trinidad and Tobago, Guyana, and Belize, are excluded. The Bermudas are neither politically nor geographically West Indian.

The last complete checklist of the scarabs of this region is that of Blackwelder (1944). References prior to that work are not listed unless a record is included that was missed by Blackwelder. Important island species lists include Gowdy (Jamaica), Wolcott (Puerto Rico), Beatty (St. Croix) Miskimen and Bond (St. Croix), XXXX (Barbados), Chalumeau (French West Indies), Chalumeau and Chapin (Dominica), Arrow (1901, 1903, 1907) (Grenada and St. Vincent).

The most important workers on West Indian scarabaeoids in this century are (in alphabetical order): Oscar L. Cartwright, Fortuné Chalumaeu, Edward Chapin, Sebo Endrödy, Henry F. Howden, Eric Matthews, Brett C. Ratcliffe, Pedro Reyes-Castillo, Milton W. Sanderson, Jack C. Schuster.