Helops Fabricius, 1775

Helops Fabricius, 1775

As outlined in Nabozhenko & Steiner (2021: 354-356), the new world “ Helops ” clearly do not belong to the Old-World genus Helops as both belong to different putative phylogenetic groups. Mediterranean Helops to the Helopioid Helopina and New World “ Helops ” to the Catomoid Helopina . Horn (1870) recognized the single genus Helops for all Helopini from north of Mexico, which has remained constant until the last decade. Champion (1887) treated the Central American fauna and recognized three genera (See Nautes and Tarpela below) and retained the use of Helops for flightless species. Champion’s concept of a separate flightless genus would likely have included Stenotrichus LeConte, 1862 and Biomorphus Motschulsky, 1872 from the western United States which are both currently synonymized under Helops following the broad concept of Nearctic workers.

Regardless of whether a broader or narrower concept is used, and whether flight is a meaningful character to separate genera, the genus name Helops is insufficient to represent the New World species currently placed there. The necessity of separating the Palearctic true Helops from the New World “ Helops ” has been discussed many times by previous authors: ( Gebien 1943, Marcuzzi 2001, Dajoz 2001, Nabozhenko et al. 2016, Nabozhenko & Steiner 2021). Dinomus , as discussed above, agrees with Champion’s concept of flightless Central American species. This represents the oldest available genus-group name of Helopini with a type species from in the New World from which all other New World genera must be adequately distinguished from if they are to continue to be recognized.