Smicrolius Thomson, 1895

Taxonomic History / Nomenclature
Smicrolius Thomson, 1894: 2008. Type species: Syndipnus (Smicrolius) parvicalcar Thomson, 1894. Monobasic.

The date of publication is given as either 1893 or 1894 by Yu et al. (2012) and 1895 by Townes (1970) but Yu et al. (2012) also provide a reference to a discussion of the date of publication.

Remarks
There is but a single valid species in Smicrolius: the European type species Smicrolius parvicalcar (Thomson, 1893). Townes (1970), however, stated that there were two undescribed Nearctic species.
Diagnosis and Relationships
In his key to the genera of Mesoleiini, Townes (1970) separated Smicrolius from a group containing Mesoleius, Campodorus, and Otlophorus on the basis of three quantitative characters whose states were overlapping with these other genera. Smicrolius is thus not very distinctive. General features include: fore wing areolet absent, clypeus about as in Campodorus, notaulus sharp anteriorly, and T1 short and wide, with dorsal carinae extending posteriorad level of spiracle. Townes (1970) emphasized the short, broad T2 (1.7 to 2.3 as wide as long), hind tibial spurs that are about 0.4-0.5 times length of hind basitarsus, and small body size. I have not examined any material of this genus, and this information is directly from Townes (1970).
Distribution
No referenced distribution records have been added to the database for this OTU.
Map

There are no specimens currently determined for this OTU, or those specimens determined for this OTU are not yet mappable.

Acknowledgements
This page was assembled by Bob Wharton as part of a larger collaborative effort on the genera of Ctenopelmatinae. Page last updated May, 2015.

This work would not have been possible without the groundwork provided by Ian Gauld’s study of the Australian and Costa Rican faunas, and we are particularly grateful for his assistance in many aspects of this study. We also thank David Wahl of the American Entomological Institute and Andy Bennett of the Canadian National Collection for extended loans of the material used for this study. Matt Yoder provided considerable assistance with databasing issues, and our use of PURLs (http://purl.oclc.org) in this regard follows the example of their use in publications by Norm Johnson. Heather Cummins, Karl Roeder, and Caitlin Nessner graciously assisted with formatting and literature retrieval. This study was supported by the National Science Foundation’s PEET program under Grant No. DEB 0328922 and associated REU supplement #s DEB 0723663 and 0923134.

This material is based upon work at Texas A&M University supported by the National Science Foundation under Grant Number DEB 0328922 with REU supplements DEB 0723663 and 0923134. Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation.