Integrative taxonomy of coastal (Erichson) species complex (Coleoptera, Staphylinidae).

A systematic review of the marine littoral (Erichson) along the eastern Pacific and the western Atlantic coasts including the Caribbean Sea is presented based on morphological and molecular ( and ) characters. Specimens of the species complex [, Bierig, and (LeConte)] are similar to each other, including the form and structure of the aedeagus, and they can be treated as cryptic species. Detailed micromorphological characters (SEM) and molecular analyses support the validity of these three species. Intraspecific genetic divergence of using uncorrected p-distance among individuals of ranged from 0% to 1.56%, while interspecific divergence among three species ranged from 4.90% to 14.59%. All three species were each supported as a single lineage using and on both parsimony and maximum likelihood trees. Morphological characters among , , and are compared. Frank is synonymized under and is redescribed with illustrations of diagnostic characters.