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Eucurtia Mjöberg 1912

Eucurtia comata (Blackburn)

Michael S. Caterino
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Containing group: Chlamydopsinae

Introduction

Eucurtia comata is alone in the genus Eucurtia. It is a highly distinctive species, with greatly exaggerated trichome setae. The species is unusual among Chlamydopsinae in living with termites rather than ants. Mjöberg (1912) described interactions of the beetle and its host, including the termites imbibing some sort of fluid from the apices of the elongated trichomes. No specimens other than Blackburn's original type and the specimen observed by Mjöberg have ever been found.

Analyses by Caterino & Dégallier (2007) placed Eucurtia as the sister to a clade comprising Chlamydopsis and Ectatommiphila. However, they cautioned that too many character states of Eucurtia remain to be resolved to have high confidence in this result. In particular, no males of Eucurtia are known, and some potentially informative genitalia characters have not been examined.

Characteristics

Beyond the unusually elongate trichome setae, Eucurtia comata is characterized by its relatively large size (about 4mm). It also lacks an elevated anterior pronotal margin, though this is true of several Chlamydopsis as well.

Other Names for Eucurtia comata (Blackburn)

References

Caterino. M. S. and Dégallier, N. 2007. A review of the biology and systematics of Chlamydopsinae. Invertebrate Systematics 21:1-28.

Mjöberg, E. 1912. On a new termitophilous genus of the family Histeridae. Entomologisk Tidskrift 33:121–124.

Title Illustrations
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Scientific Name Eucurtia comata
Specimen Condition Dead Specimen
Identified By Michael S. Caterino
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Collection The Natural History Museum, London
Type Holotype
Image Use creative commons This media file is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License - Version 3.0.
Copyright ©
Scientific Name Eucurtia comata
Specimen Condition Dead Specimen
Identified By Michael S. Caterino
View lateral
Collection The Natural History Museum, London
Type Holotype
Image Use creative commons This media file is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License - Version 3.0.
Copyright ©
About This Page


Santa Barbara Museum of Natural History, Santa Barbara, California, USA

Correspondence regarding this page should be directed to Michael S. Caterino at

Page: Tree of Life Eucurtia Mjöberg 1912. Eucurtia comata (Blackburn). Authored by Michael S. Caterino. The TEXT of this page is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution License - Version 3.0. Note that images and other media featured on this page are each governed by their own license, and they may or may not be available for reuse. Click on an image or a media link to access the media data window, which provides the relevant licensing information. For the general terms and conditions of ToL material reuse and redistribution, please see the Tree of Life Copyright Policies.

Citing this page:

Caterino, Michael S. 2007. Eucurtia Mjöberg 1912. Eucurtia comata (Blackburn). Version 15 July 2007 (under construction). http://tolweb.org/Eucurtia_comata/9261/2007.07.15 in The Tree of Life Web Project, http://tolweb.org/

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