Unifying systematics and taxonomy: Nomenclatural changes to Nearctic tiger beetles (Coleoptera: Carabidae: Cicindelinae) based on phylogenetics, morphology and life history

Abstract

The taxonomy of Nearctic tiger beetles (Coleoptera: Carabidae: Cicindelinae) is reviewed in light of modern systematics research. Despite decades of published molecular phylogenies, the taxonomic nomenclature has not been formally updated since the 1950s. We generated a maximum likelihood phylogenetic tree based on three mitochondrial gene fragments (16S, COX3 and CytB) to address the placement of Nearctic taxa that were not included in recent studies; these species were historically contained within Cylindera Westwood, 1831, a polyphyletic genus. Here we describe Parvindela Duran and Gough, new genus, and propose 20 new combinations based on a plurality of data, including our topology, prior molecular phylogenetic studies, morphology and ecology: Apterodela unipunctata (Fabricius, 1775) new combination; Brasiella praecisa (Bates, 1890) new combination; Brasiella viridisticta (Bates, 1881) new combination; Cicindela amargosae (Dahl, 1939) new combination; Cicindela senilis (G. Horn, 1866) new combination; Cicindela willistoni (LeConte, 1879) new combination; Eunota californica (Menetries, 1883) new combination; Eunota circumpicta (LaFerte, 1841) new combination; Eunota fulgoris (Casey, 1913) new combination; Eunota gabbii (G. Horn, 1866) new combination; Eunota pamphila (LeConte, 1873) new combination; Eunota praetextata (LeConte, 1854) new combination; Eunota severa (LaFerte, 1841) new combination; Eunota striga (LeConte, 1875) new combination; Parvindela debilis (Bates, 1890) new combination; Parvindela celeripes (LeConte, 1848) new combination; Parvindela cursitans (LeConte, 1860) new combination; Parvindela terricola (Say, 1824) new combination; Parvindela nephelota (Bates, 1882) new combination; Parvindela lunalonga (Schaupp, 1884) new combination.