Aleocharinae (Insecta, Coleoptera, Staphylinidae) de Madagascar

The subfamily Aleocharinae is a large group of Staphylinidae beetles represented by many genera and a large number of species in all zoogeographical regions. The taxonomy of this group is rather difficult and relies heavily on the characters of the male copulatory organ and of the spermatheca. In the present study, additional new data for several Malagasy Aleocharinae and new species are presented. The material studied comes from the Jarrige collection. Eight tribes (Corotocini, Hypocyphtini, Leucocraspedini, Pronomaeini, Gyrophaenini, Homalotini, Diestotini and Oxypodinini), 16 genera (Millotoca, Oligota, Leucocraspedum, Myllaena, Tomoxelia, Nopromaea, Bryothinusa, Gyrophaena, Brachida, Neobrachida, Placusa, Homalota, Neosilusa, Coenonica, Diestota and Heterotaxus) and 45 species are recognized. Nineteen species are described as new to science, seven of the genus Myllaena (M. anjavidilavensis n. sp., M. microptera n. sp., M. imaitsensis n. sp., M. maroantsetrensis n. sp., M. muscicola n. sp., M. lemuriana n. sp. and M. terricola n. sp.), one of the genus Nopromaea (N. andringitrensis n. sp.), one of the genus Tomoxelia (T. ambrensis n. sp.), one of the genus Bryothinusa (B. madecassa n. sp.), one of the genus Gyrophaena (G. insularis n. sp.), one of the genus Brachida (B. hova n. sp.), three of the genus Placusa (P. malgascia n. sp., P. madecassa n. sp. and P. convexa n. sp.), one of the genus Homalota (H. antongilicola n. sp.) one of the genus Coenonica (C. incisa n. sp.) and two of the genus Heterotaxus (H. pauliani n. sp. and H. malgascius n. sp.). The genus Oligusa Wasmann, 1897 is placed in synonymy with Oligota Mannerheim, 1831. New combination is proposed for Oligusa crematogastris Wasmann, 1897. The genus Bryothinusa is recorded from Madagascar for the first time. The female has been recovered, first unknown, for one species (Tomoxelia andohahela Pace, 1999) and here for the first time the spermatheca is illustrated. Each new species is described and illustrated. All available distributional data are presented. With the present study the number of the Aleocharinae species from Madagascar is of 494 of which 474 are endemic.