Phylogenetic status of some unique species representing Blapstinina Mulsant & Rey (Tenebrionidae: Blaptinae: Opatrini), and implications for continued study of the subtribe
Bibliographic record
Abstract
Blapstinus Dejean is the most taxonomically challenging genus within Blapstinina Mulsant & Rey (Tenebrionidae: Opatrini). With over 120 species, it is widely distributed throughout the Americas, with representatives reaching Canada on the northern range edge, and Argentina, Chile, and Uruguay in the south. Traditionally, Blapstinus has been distinguished from other blapstinoid beetles via well-developed metathoracic wings and their lack of synapomorphies present in other genera; however, fused and tapering aedeagal parameres were recently introduced as a potential autapomorphy for the genus. This study used molecular data (nuclear ribosomal 28S, cytochrome oxidase subunit II (COII), arginine kinase (ArgK), carbomyl-phosphate synthetase domain of rudimentary (CAD), and wingless (wg)) to investigate the phylogenetic placement and taxonomic status of three Blapstinus species with distinct male genitalic morphology, i.e. Blapstinus tibialis Champion (USA), B. grandis Champion (Mexico, Nicaragua), and B. punctulatus Solier (Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Uruguay). Analyses highlight the phylogenetic informativeness of the aedeagal morphology within the subtribe, and support an urgent need for taxonomic studies of South American taxa. Blapstinus tibialis and B. grandis were recovered as a specific lineage within Blapstinus that can be easily distinguished from remaining congeners by having tridentate parameres. A lectotype for B. grandis is designated to fix the taxonomic status of this species. Blapstinus punctulatus was recovered outside of its current genus which, along with aedeagal morphology, supports a change of status of the species. As a result, the following synonymy and combinations are introduced: Lodinus Mulsant and Rey stat. restit. (=Austrocaribius Marcuzzi syn. nov.), Lodinus araguae (Marcuzzi) comb. et stat. nov., L. punctulatus comb. nov., L. venezuelensis (Marcuzzi) comb. nov. Lectotypes for Lodinus nigroaeneus Mulsant and Rey, L. araguae, and L. punctulatus are designated to fix the taxonomic status of these species.
Fetched live from OpenAlex and de-inverted. Abstracts are not stored in this database: the inverted indexes are 8.6 GB of the frame’s 9.3 GB of text, and the host has 13 GB free.
How this classification was reachedexpand
Full frame machine prediction
Teacher imitationNot calibrated prevalence, not ground truth. Human validation pending. The Gemma side is a direct model label for every work in the frame, read from the title-only record. The Codex side is a classifier learned from the 10,348 direct Codex labels and calibrated to design-weighted sample rates; fields without enough sample support carry no Codex call. Candidate is the union of the two sides; consensus is their intersection. These outputs are machine_predicted_unvalidated and are not human labels.
Distilled classifier scores by category (both heads)
| Category | Codex | Gemma |
|---|---|---|
| Metaresearch | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (narrow) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Meta-epidemiology (broad) | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Bibliometrics | 0.001 | 0.001 |
| Science and technology studies | 0.001 | 0.000 |
| Scholarly communication | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Open science | 0.000 | 0.001 |
| Research integrity | 0.000 | 0.000 |
| Insufficient payload (model declined to judge) | 0.001 | 0.000 |
Machine scores (provisional)
The two teacher heads of the student model, read on this work. A score orders the frame for review; it never asserts a category, and the validation status ships verbatim with every row.
Baseline scores from an immature model (maturity gate not passed, 7 training rounds). Scores rank; they never assert a category.
score_only:v0-immature-baseline · verbatim from the scoring run: score_only means the number may rank works, and no category label ships from itClassification
machine, unvalidatedMachine predicted; a candidate call from one source (direct Gemma or distilled Codex), not a consensus.
How this classification was reached, model by model and score by score, is at the end of the page under "How this classification was reached".