The Australian species of the carabid genus Perileptus (Coleoptera : Carabidae : Trechinae)

Abstract

The Australian species of the trechine genus Perileptus are revised and compared in a key. Perileptus convexicollis, sp. nov., P. subopacus, sp. nov., and P. minimus, sp. nov., all from northern or northwestern Australia, are described, and the subgenus Pyrrhotachys Sloane is reestablished. The species distribution is mapped. Patterns of distribution and the phylogenetic status of the species suggest at least two independent westward migrations, of different lineages and presumably at different times, within Australia, resulting in the evolution of several endemic species in refugia in northern or north-western Australia. As a consequence, the Perileptus fauna of Western Australia is today more diverse than that of eastern Australia, in spite of the rather unsuitable environmental conditions in the north-western refugia.