干旱区生态环境知识资源中心

The asidine darkling beetles (Coleoptera: Tenebrionidae: Asidini) are a diverse tribe of flightless tenebrionids found in many arid and sub-arid habitats around the world. The 263 currently described North American species are contained in ten genera, all of which are restricted to the western half of the continent. The Asidini, like all members of the subfamily Pime-liinae lack defensive glands. Instead, several phenotypic traits occur within the tribe that may help limit predation. These include the contrasting defensive strategies of crypsis, through either background matching or pattern disruption, and Batesian mimicry of the chemically defended genus Eteocles. Dorsal elytral morphology was assessed between 53 North American asidine species and 13 common Eteocles model species using multiple methodologies to assess similarities between species in the two groups that might indicate mimetic relationships. A phyloaeny of the North American asidines is used to map the occurrence of differing defensive strategies within the tribe. Crypsis is reconstructed as the ancestral state, with two origins for Batesian mimicry and multiple reversals. The combination of strongly to weakly cryptic species and varying levels of mimetic fidelity to Eteocles model species make the asidines a promising lineage upon which to further explore the evolution of defensive phenotypes. (C) The Willi Flennig Society 2014.