Discovering the Diversity and Evolution of Danascelinae: A New Genus and Species from Eastern Asia and Insights into the Phylogenetic Placement of This Subfamily in Endomychidae (Coleoptera)

A new genus and species of the family Endomychidae (Coleoptera: Coccinelloidea), Hadroscelis sinensis Tomaszewska and Arriaga-Varela gen. et sp. nov., were described, diagnosed, and illustrated from the south-eastern Palaearctic. In order to test the systematic placement of the new taxon within the subfamily Danascelinae and of Danascelinae within Endomychidae, a phylogenetic analysis was conducted. A dataset of 35 morphological characters scored for 16 species, members of each Endomychidae subfamily and a representative of Coccinellidae as a distant outgroup, was analyzed using maximum parsimony. The results of the analysis unequivocally indicated Hadroscelis as a new, monotypic genus and the most basal taxon within Danascelinae. At the same time, this study formally confirmed, for the first time, the subfamily Danascelinae as a member and the basal clade of the monophyletic ‘merophysiine complex’ of the Endomychidae.