Rove by the Riverside

The Staphylinidae, commonly known as the rove beetles, are one of the most diverse of the recognised beetle families. Indeed, thanks to their habit in recent years of glomming up lineages previously treated as distinct families like the pselaphids and scydmaenids, they now rival the weevils of the Curculionidae for the position of largest of all recognised animal families. But for their diversity and ubiquity, staphylinids are comparatively poorly studied, owing to a not-unwarranted reputation for taxonomic recalcitrance (the relatively soft bodies of many staphylinids mean they often do not handle well with standard methods for examining beetles). Perhaps the most neglected of all staphylinid subgroups is the subfamily Aleocharinae. Aleocharines are often minute (the average aleocharine is only a couple of millimetres in length) and their identification often requires resolving features that lie at the very limit of what can be seen with a standard dissecting microscope. Nevertheless, aleocharines are remarkably diverse and among their representatives are the representatives of the genus Parocyusa.

Parocyusa americana, from Brunke et al. (2012); scale bar = 1 mm.

Typical aleocharines have what is thought of as the 'standard' body form for staphylinids, with short, square elytra that do not cover the long, flexible abdomen (though I should mention that, with the aforementioned assimilation of the pselaphids and scydmaenids, I suspect there may now be more 'non-standard' staphylinid species than 'standard' ones). For the most part, they can be distinguished from other staphylinid subfamilies by the position of the antennae, with their insertions placed behind the level of the front of the eyes. Aleocharines are divided between numerous tribes; Parocyusa is included in the tribe Oxypodini, a heterogenous group of relatively unspecialised aleocharines. Notable features distinguishing Parocyusa from other aleocharine genera include legs with five segments to each tarsus, a frontal suture between the antennal insertions, the median segments of the antennae being longer than wide, the head not having a well defined 'neck', the sides of the pronotum not being strongly deflexed downwards (so the hypomeron, the lateral section of the pronotum, is clearly visible in side view), and deep transverse impressions across the third to fifth abdominal tergite but not across the sixth tergite or across the sternites (Newton et al. 2001). Members of the genus are a bit over three millimetres in length.

Species of Parocyusa are found widely in the Holarctic realm; I've found reference to species from Europe, Korea, and northeastern North America (I should also note that I've also encountered dark allusions to recent rearrangements of the generic status of some of these species but without access to such revisions I'm going to stick with what I can find). I haven't found any reference to their specific diet but I suspect that they would be micropredators, a common lifestyle for staphylinids of their kind. Parocyusa species are associated with running water, living among the gravel and sand alongside stream beds (e.g. Brunke et al. 2012). As such, these and other aleocharines have received attention in ecological studies: the higher the diversity of staphylinids present, the more healthy the ecosystem is likely to be.

REFERENCES

Brunke, A. J., J. Klimaszewski, J.-A. Dorval, C. Bourdon, S. M. Paiero & S. A. Marshall. 2012. New species and distributional records of Aleocharinae (Coleoptera, Staphylinidae) from Ontario, Canada, with a checklist of recorded species. ZooKeys 186: 119–206.

Newton, A. F., M. K. Thayer, J. S. Ashe & D. S. Chandler. 2001. Staphylinidae Latreille, 1802. In: Arnett, R. H., Jr & M. C. Thomas (eds) American Beetles vol. 1. Archostemata, Myxophaga, Adephaga, Polyphaga: Staphyliniformia pp. 272–418. CRC Press: Boca Raton.