Onthophagus hecate (Panzer, 1794)

Kohlmann, Bert & Solís, Ángel, 2025, A review of the species groups of the Western Hemisphere Onthophagus Latreille (Coleoptera: Scarabaeidae: Scarabaeinae) using COI barcoding and gene trees, Zootaxa 5604 (4), pp. 401-447 : 427

publication ID	https://doi.org/10.11646/zootaxa.5604.4.1
publication LSID	lsid:zoobank.org:pub:6A95109D-6F33-4DE7-9D47-6A722DD26918
DOI	https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.15225836
persistent identifier	https://treatment.plazi.org/id/03AA2362-1479-FF8C-FF28-AEF0FACCAD07
treatment provided by	Plazi
scientific name	Onthophagus hecate
status

Treatment

Onthophagus hecate View in CoL species group*.

This group is diagnosed by the apical and internal male protibial margin projected ( Figs. 1.39 View FIG –44); male protibial spur bent downwards ( Figs. 1.39, 1.41 View FIG –44); male protibial apex with some short setae ( Figs. 1.39 View FIG –44); male pronotum with a bifurcate projection bent downwards or level ( Figs. 5.12 View FIG –13).

A distinct O. hecate species group is recovered by the barcode and gene tree analyses ( Figs. 1–2 View FIG View FIG , 8–9 View FIG View FIG ) with a bootstrap value of 70 and is formed by O. hecate (Panzer) , O. medorensis Brown , and O. orpheus (Panzer) . This group is distributed in the eastern half of the United States of America and southeastern Canada. Several other species may pertain to this group. This species group and rodent nests have a strong but not exclusive relationship. The mtDNA barcode tree topology ( Figs. 1–2 View FIG View FIG , 6 View FIG ) suggests that O. hecate blatchleyi Brown should be elevated to species status. Brown (1925, 1927, 1929) initially suggested a relationship between O. cynomysi Brown , O. hecate , O. medorensis , and O. orpheus .

Emlen et al. (2005) have shown prolific evolutionary lability in the horn gain and loss processes shown by Onthophagus worldwide. Emlen et al. (2005: fig. 4) estimated a Bayesian posterior probability of 100 for the O. orpheus – O. hecate tree clade. Emlen et al. (2005: fig. 5) proposed for the case of O. orpheus and O. hecate the loss of head horns, still showing rudimentary bumps at the base of the head, suggesting that full head horns may have been present in ancestral populations. At the same time, Emlen et al. (2005: fig. 7) proposed an independent gain event of pronotal horns for O. orpheus and O. hecate . These independent gain/loss processes seem to have confused previous taxonomists into considering the O. hecate species group as part of the O. mexicanus species group.

References

Figures

FIG. 1. Neighbor-joining tree for the Western Hemisphere Onthophagus species, based on K2P genetic distances comparisons between COI-5P mitochondrial barcoding sequences. Figs. 23–25 belong to the O. eulophus species group. Figs. 44 and 63 are not assigned to any species group. The male protibiae of the following species are depicted: 1, O. acuminatus; 2, O. batesi; 3, O. incensus; 4, O. nitidor; 5, O. stockwelli; 6, O. striatulus striatulus; 7, O. tristis; 8, O. basicarinatus; 9, O. hircus; 10, O. marginicollis; 11, O. nyctopus; 12, O. onorei; 13, O. osculati; 14, O. ptox; 15, O. ranunculus; 16, O. atriglabrus; 17, O. genuinus; 18, O. rostratus; 19, O. sharpi; 20, O. tapirus; 21, O. villanuevai; 22, O. violetae; 23, O. anewtoni; 24, O. arnetti; 25, O. browni; 26, O. championi; 27, O. guatemalensis; 28, O. mexicanus; 29, O. cartwrighti; 30, O. velutinus; 31, O. alluvius; 32, O. altivagans; 33, O. anthracinus; 34, O. brachypterus; 35, O. chryses; 36, O. landolti; 37, O. lecontei; 38, O. schaefferi; 39, O. concinnus; 40, O. cynomysi; 41, O. hecate hecate; 42, O. medorensis; 43, O. orpheus orpheus; 44, O. polyphemi sparsisetosus; 45, O. chevrolati; 46, O. cyanellus, 47, O. hippopotamus; 48, O. oaxacanus; 49, O. reyesi; 50, O. salvadorensis; 51, O. sanpabloetlorum; 52, O. skelleyi; 53, O. subtropicus; 54, O. totonicapanus; 55, O. vespertilio; 56, O. crinitus; 57, O. gazellinus; 58, O. onthochromus; 59, O. aciculatulus; 60, O. coscineus; 61, O. hoepfneri; 62, O. igualensis; 63, O. lebasi; 64, O. pennsylvanicus; 65, O. subanaeus; 66, tuberculifrons; 67, O. barreti; 68, O.breviconus; 69, O. contrapositus; 70, O. dicranius; 71, O. dorsipilulus; 72, O. humboldti; 73, O. kohlmanni; 74, O. micropterus; 75, O. neomirabilis; 76, O. orphnoides; 77, O. petenensis; 78, O. subcancer; 79, O. andersoni; 80, O. belorhinus; 81, O. grataehelenae; 82, O. limonensis; 83, O. maya; 84, O. praecellens; 85, O. propraecellens; 86, O. rhinolophus; 87, O. rhinophyllus; 88, undescribed species of Onthophagus; 89, O. viridivinosus; 90, O. xanthomerus. See Table 2 for an explanation of the specimen codes. See Table 7 for the author names of the species listed.