Research Article |
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Corresponding author: Jonas Eberle ( jonas.eberle@plus.ac.at ) Academic editor: Vinicius S. Ferreira
© 2026 Jonas Eberle, Raphael Schallegger, Derek S. Sikes, Michel Lebel, Roland Gerstmeier.
This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the CC0 Public Domain Dedication.
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Abstract
The North American checkered beetle (Cleridae) Thanasimus nubilus Klug, 1842 is currently listed as a subspecies of Thanasimus undatulus (Say, 1835). We test the species status of T. nubilus by investigation of DNA barcodes and morphological measurements of multiple specimens of each of the two taxa as well as of multiple specimens of two additional North American species of the genus. We use four species delimitation methods based on gene tree and clustering algorithms (barcode gap threshold clustering, Assemble Species by Automatic Partitioning [ASAP], and single and multi-rate Poisson Tree Processes [mPTP]). Evidence from mtDNA clearly supported treating these two subspecies as distinct species which was also supported by a morphometric analysis. We therefore propose Thanasimus nubilus Klug, 1842 stat. rev. to be reinstated as a valid species.
Thanasimus undatulus, integrative taxonomy, species delimitation, cox1
The checkered beetles (Coleoptera: Cleridae) of the Nearctic region are relatively well-known taxonomically, although some species-rich genera (e.g. Cymatodera, Enoclerus, Phyllobaenus) need more revisionary work. Among them is the Holarctic genus Thanasimus Latreille, 1806, aka the ant beetles. Thanasimus formicarius (Linné, 1758) (originally in Attelabus), a Palaearctic representative, belongs to the first five beetles described by Linné (1758) within the family Cleridae, which Latreille (1806) made the type species of the genus Thanasimus. Their common name, ‘ant beetles’ is a misnomer, because it refers to their similarity to the aposematic coloration of the wasps known as Velvet Ants (Mutillidae). Thanasimus beetles prey on a wide range of scolytid beetles (Curculionidae: Scolytinae) and therefore play an important role as pest control in forestry. They are mainly found on the true firs (Abies), true spruces (Picea) and Douglas fir (Pseudotsuga) where they are attracted to both scolytid pheromones and to volatiles produced by damaged host trees. However, despite being the subject of a wealth of publications on chemical responses to kairomones and other substances (
Nearctic Thanasimus species comprise T. dubius (Fabricius, 1776), T. repandus Horn, 1871, T. trifasciatus (Say, 1825), T. undatulus (Say, 1835), and possibly the introduced T. formicarius (Linné, 1758). After Thanasimus undatulus underwent some taxonomic confusion as described below, it currently has two subspecies, T. u. undatulus and T. u. nubilus. Since specimens of the two subspecies have often been collected in the same locations (
We applied contemporary species delimitation methods on available and newly sequenced DNA barcode data of seven species of the genus Thanasimus including T. undatulus and T. nubilus. Evidence from morphometric measurements of body length of the two species complemented the results of DNA barcoding and allowed a conclusion on the species status of T. nubilus. Results from mtDNA gave hints to an interesting biogeographic history of the investigated species.
We analyzed DNA barcodes and/or morphology of a total of 274 adult Thanasimus specimens (DNA: 233, morphology: 49, DNA and morphology could be investigated for three of these individuals) of six ingroup and four outgroup species (Table S1; Fig.
Samples analyzed at Université Laval were processed using the following protocol. For the extraction of genomic DNA, the abdomen was excised and its content was transferred into an Eppendorf tube containing 250 µL of proteinase K solution. The samples were incubated at 50°C for five hours. Approximately 80 µg of glycogen was added to each tube and then 125 µL of 6 M NaCl was added to the tubes. The samples were vortexed 2 min and then kept on ice for 10 min. Tubes were centrifuged at 16,000 g for 10 min at 4°C and the supernatant were transferred into 1 mL of cold 95% ethanol. Samples were then centrifuged at 16,000 g for 5 min at 4°C. The DNA/glycogen pellets were washed with 70% ethanol and recentrifuged. Pellets were air dried and then resuspended in 12 µL of HPLC pure water. Two µL of DNA were used for each polymerase chain reaction (PCR). All samples were PCR amplified with the primers CLepFolF (5’-ATTCAACCAATCATAAAGATATTGG-3’) and CLepFoIR (5’-TAAACTTCTGGATGTCCAAAAAATCA-3’) (
From samples processed at the University of Salzburg (
Sequences were aligned with MAFFT v. 7.520 (
We used four methods to infer putative species based on molecular data (excluding outgroups): a simple distance threshold-based clustering, a more sophisticated recursive clustering method, and two gene-tree based partitioning method. Barcode gap (
Hierarchical clustering is also used in the ASAP algorithm (Linux version as downloaded on 2023-10-05; https://bioinfo.mnhn.fr/abi/public/asap;
A different approach is used by mPTP (v. 0.2.5;
Body length measurements were taken from 49 North American Thanasimus specimens (7 T. dubius, 6 T. nubilus, 5 T. trifasciatus, 31 T. undatulus). We measured total body length (from the apical clypeal margin to the elytral apices, L), maximum eye width from dorsal view (EyW), minimum distance between eyes (EyD), length of pronotum (PL), width of pronotum at the broadest extreme (PW), length of elytra along the middle line (EL), and width of elytra at the broadest extreme (EW). Measurements were analyzed by principal component analysis using the prcomp-function from the base-R-package stats. Data were not scaled, i.e., analyses were based on the covariance matrix. Biplots were created with ggbiplot (
Based on two independent lines of evidence, DNA barcoding and morphological analysis, we provide support for the reinstatement of T. nubilus as a species distinct from T. undatulus. Notable intraspecific genetic divergence was observed among T. undatulus populations sampled from California, western Canada, and Alaska (Fig.
The mitochondrial cox1-gene tree showed monophyly of T. nubilus (UFB 100) and T. undatulus (UFB 99) and high mean interspecific genetic differentiation between the two species of 9.4% (8.2%–11.5%) (Figs
Maximum likelihood gene tree of six Thanasimus species, that was inferred from DNA barcodes with IQ-TREE. A bold “W” indicates the T. undatulus-lineage west of the Rocky Mountains (western lineage). The five columns to the right of the tree indicate delimitations of species as preferred based on total evidence and putative species inferred by four automated species delimitation methods based on DNA barcodes. Mismatches with morphology due to over- or under-splitting are highlighted in yellow. The histogram shows pairwise raw genetic distances of all specimens except outgroups. Ultrafast Bootstraps are displayed on nodes with > 80% support.
In contrast to the molecular analyses, the morphological separation of the two species T. undatulus and T. nubilus was rather difficult. The body length allowed a relatively reliable differentiation (T. nubilus, mean: 7.90 mm, range: 6.25–9.33 mm; T. undatulus, mean: 6.68 mm, range: 5.08–8.83 mm; Fig.
Morphological differentiation of four North American Thanasimus species as inferred by principal component analysis of seven body length measures. The biplot of principal component scores and loadings indicates that T. nubilus are mainly separated from T. undatulus by total body length (L). The inset shows color-coded boxplots of the total body length in mm of the two species. See the material and methods section for explanation of measurement acronyms.
Although members of the family Cleridae exhibit a relatively distinct appearance and comprise a modest number of species, they continue to pose significant taxonomic challenges. These difficulties are largely attributable to the variability in external morphological traits and coloration, which can obscure species-level distinctions. Consequently, the integration of molecular data proves valuable for accurate species delimitation and identification. For example, a larval specimen that was included in the study (BOLD-Accession: SSGLC5295-15) was identified as T. undatulus. However, analysis of the DNA sequence data placed this larval specimen within the nubilus-clade (Fig. S1). While results based on the DNA barcoding data that were available for the current study must be interpreted with caution, they clearly suggested different species in the case of T. nubilus and T. undatulus. Both species were monophyletic and not sister lineages in the cox1-gene tree, but this should be interpreted with caution, given the saturation of the cox1-gene at deeper time scales. However, the low intraspecific genetic variation in both species except for the western lineage (Fig.
Over the past two decades, DNA barcoding (
An exception from the very clear separation of intraspecific and interspecific genetic variation was found in specimens that stem west of the Rocky Mountains (western clade, Fig.
Authors’ contributions. JE, ML, DS, and RG conceived the study; ML and DS collected the newly sequenced specimens; ML, DS, and JE generated DNA barcodes from them; RS and JE prepared and analyzed the data; JE, ML, DS, and RG drafted the manuscript; all authors proofread the final manuscript.
Competing interests. The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.
We are grateful to Michael Geiser, who put extraordinary effort in the investigation of the type locality of T. abdominalis; to Thomas Schmitt for his comments on the biogeography of North-Western America as well as to Évelyne Barrette et Marie-Chantal Emond from the Service de la gestion des ravageurs forestiers, Direction de la protection des forêts at the Québec’s Ministère des Ressources naturelles et des Forêts (Québec, PQ, Canada) for letting us analyze the Thanasimus species collected as part of their work on the detection of invasive alien species. We also thank Jacques Rifkind, who provided us with a specimen of T. u. rubriventris. We thank Renee Miskie from the Centre for Biodiversity Genomics at University of Guelph (Ontario, Canada) for providing us with photos and information on several Thanasimus specimens and Remus Naeve, who processed several specimens in the molecular laboratory. We greatly appreciate the efforts of Jiri Kolibác and John M. Leavengood, Jr. in reviewing the manuscript draft. This research was funded in part by the Austrian Science Fund (FWF), doi: 10.55776/P36167. For open access purposes, the authors have applied a CC BY public copyright license to any author accepted manuscript version arising from this submission.
Table S1
Data type: .xlsx
Explanation notes: Details on all specimens in the study used for molecular analyses. IDs, localities, and further sampling information are given along with sequence origin. Equal letters in the syntopy column indicate pairs of syntopically collected T. undatulus and T. nubilus.
Figure S1
Data type: .pdf
Explanation notes: Maximum likelihood gene tree of seven Thanasimus species, that was inferred with IQ-TREE from all DNA barcodes of the genus Thanasimus that were available at the BOLD. Ultrafast Bootstraps are displayed on nodes with > 80% support. Specimens CNCCH1946-12, NGSFT333-16, NGSFT3334-16, GMOFA013-21 all exhibit a black pronotum and base of the elytra and were thus identified to be T. nubilus in this study.