Inventory of chaetotaxic characters of the larvae of Staphylinidae is essential for their diagnostics and especially for phylogenetic studies inside and outside the family. Most of the existing larval descriptions of Staphylinidae do not treat chaetotaxy adequately, and many recent authors still avoid its examination. To a large extent this trend results from the absence of a well-defined system or at least methodological principles for exploration of this complex character set. Within Staphylinidae, one explicitly homology-based system for description and nomenclature of chaetotaxy was proposed by Ashe and Watrous in 1984 for Aleocharinae. In the following decades this system was applied outside Aleocharinae to other Staphylinidae and other Coleoptera. Many of those applications, though, either explicitly or implicitly, are not homology-based. Not homology-based application of this (or any) homology-based system is inconsistent and leads to confusion, which further hinder investigation of larval chaetotaxy of Staphylinidae and allied groups. Possible approaches for consistent descriptions of larval chaetotaxy in Staphylinidae, with applications to other Coleoptera, are discussed.
Species 1: Coleoptera Staphylinidae (rove beetle)
Keywords: chaetotaxy, homology
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