Abstract/Summary

The family Dermestidae Latreille 1804 contains over 1700 species worldwide (Háva 2021). The subfamily Orphilinae LeConte 1861 is small containing only two genera: Ranolus (Blair 1929) with seven species distributed across Australasia and Indonesia, and Orphilus Erichson 1846 with six species from the Palaearctic and Nearctic (Háva 2021). Of the Orphilus species, O. ater Erichson 1846 and O. subnitidus LeConte 1861 occur in North America, O. kabakovi Háva and Kadej 2014 occurs in Asia, whilst O. africanus Háva 2005, O. beali Zhantiev 2001, and O. niger (Rossi 1790) are found in Europe (Háva 2021). Orphilus species externally are very similar to each other, and this has most likely impeded the development of the taxonomy of the genus, at least in the Palaearctic. Until 2000, all individuals from the Palaearctic were believed to belong to the same species, O. niger. Since 2000, two further species have been discovered (Zhantiev 2001; Hava 2005) through dissection of male genitalia, which show substantial structural differences among species. During a survey of over 150 specimens held in the collection of one of us (AH), a further Orphilus species, O. aegeanus, was discovered. In the current study, we describe O. aegeanus and compare it to the most likely confusion species, O. africanus. All insects were floated from the mounting card and macerated in 2% acetic acid for a period of 5 days prior to dissection. Dissection was carried out under a Brunel BMSL zoom stereo LED microscope and involved detaching the abdomen from the rest of the insect using two entomological needles. The soft tergites were then peeled away from the harder ventrites to expose the genitalia. The aedeagus was pushed out between abdominal sternites IX and X using an entomological needle. The aedeagus was then detached from the sternites. Images of habitus were captured at ×20 magnification using a Canon EOS 1300D camera mounted on the BMSL microscope. The antennae were teased out and images were captured at ×100 magnification using the EOS 1300D camera mounted on a Brunel monocular SP28 microscope. Using the same set up, dorsal and ventral surfaces of the aedeagi were captured at x100 magnification, and images of the tips of the median lobe were captured at x 200 magnification. All images were fed through Helicon Focus Pro version 8 focus-stacking software. Morphometric measurements were made using DsCap.Ink Software version 3.90. Measurements taken: body length (BL): distance from anterior margin of pronotum to the apex of the elytra, and body width (BW): maximum distance across the elytra. After dissection, all body parts were mounted on card. British Natural History Museum, London (BNHM).