When the small beetles tell the story of the big world: Towards the monograph of the rove beetle genus Hyperomma (Coleoptera: Staphylinidae: Paederinae)

The genus Hyperomma (Fauvel 1878) is confined only to Australia and New Zealand and inhabits mosses and leaf litter in the tropical (Northern Queensland) and temperate rainforests. Its taxonomy needs to be revised as the existing 29 species descriptions are largely outdated, and at least 70 new species have been found and need to be described. Furthermore, the supraspecific classification of Hyperomma must be developed, and the systematic position for the genus itself within the subfamily Paederinae must be discovered. Hyperomma presumably belongs to a rather basal group in paederines, but both the rigorous phylogeny of this genus (in progress) and such for the entire subfamily Paederinae (so far non-existent) would give an answer. Also, a thorough phylogenetic study of Hyperomma might point to the biogeographical explanation for the unusual distribution of this genus. This in turn may be a valuable piece of knowledge for the larger studies on the history of life in New Zealand. Preliminary results show that the New Zealandian fauna of Hyperomma might be of complex origin. Some of the species can be interpreted as the result of vicariance, tracing their histories back to Gondwana break up times. But others might be later arrivals to New Zealand from Australia due to transoceanic dispersal. A reliable explanation is highly dependent on synchronizing the phylogenetic trees with Earth history.