ABSTRACT Carabidae (ground beetles), the third largest family within Coleoptera, exhibit remarkable diversity extensively documented in natural history collections, making them an ideal group for museomic studies. This work focuses on subterranean ground beetles of the tribes Sphodrini and Trechini and aims to clarify the phylogenetic position of key taxa that are extremely difficult to sample in the wild due to their rarity and inaccessibility. We particularly examined two highly troglomorphic species, Ifridytes mateui Deuve and (ii) SEQ, including mitochondrial COX1 and 16S and nuclear 18S and 28S. Divergence times were estimated under a Bayesian relaxed‐clock model in BEAST. All historical specimens were successfully extracted, amplified and sequenced, validating the museomic approach for reconstructing evolutionary histories of rare taxa. Ifridytes , previously enigmatic, is strongly associated with Sphodrini and likely related to Sphodrina. Conversely, Subilsia nests within epigean Trechus , supporting the hypothesis that extreme troglomorphic adaptations evolved independently and convergently within Trechini. This study demonstrates the power of museomics to resolve long‐standing systematic questions and provides new insights into the evolutionary history of subterranean Carabidae.
Nattier et al. (Mon,) studied this question.