All nomenclaturally available genus-group names in the family Tenebrionidae are listed alphabetically. For each name the author, year of publication, page number, gender (in square brackets: M = masculine, F = feminine, N = neuter), type species, typification, current status, and first synonymy (when the name is a synonym) are provided. The type species and type species fixation given for unjustified emendations and replacement names are identical to those of the available names they replace (International Commission on Zoological Nomenclature (henceforth ICZN) 1999, Article 67.8) and are listed following “Type species [automatic]:”. We follow previous authors (e.g., Alonso-Zarazaga and Lyal 2009; Bousquet et al. 2015, 2018) in considering type-species designations in R. Lucas (1920) potentially valid when a single species is listed under a particular genus-group name. According to ICZN (1999, Article 67.2.5) “a nominal species is deemed not to be originally included if it was doubtfully or conditionally included, or was cited as a species inquirenda, or as a species incertae sedis.” For this catalogue, any nominal species associated with a new genus with a question mark “?” was deemed not to be originally included. In accordance with Article 11.9.3.2 (ICZN 1999) we used the correct spelling of the species name (i.e., in agreement with the gender of the generic name) for all species-group name combinations. The author of each new synonym or new placement is given in square brackets (e.g., “[RLA]”) in the alphabetical list of available genus-group names. We included all genus-group names known to us up to the date of publication of this article.

While the identification of the type species is generally assumed to be correct (ICZN 1999, Article 70.1), evidence suggests that the type species of a small number of genus-group names were misidentified. In these cases, we include information about the misidentification and select the species (either the nominal species previously cited as the type species or the taxonomic species actually involved) that will best serve stability and universality in our opinion (ICZN 1999, Article 70.3). If we select the taxonomic species actually involved as type species, an action that could not have been taken under previous editions of the International Code of Zoological Nomenclature and that must be accompanied with a reference to Article 73 (ICZN 1999), it is given in the format “fixed herein (ICZN 1999, Article 70.3) as Tenebrio velikensis Piller and Mitterpacher, 1783, misidentified as Tenebrio caraboides Linnaeus, 1758 in the original designation by monotypy in Dejean (1821).”

In some cases, we have noted that the original combination of the accepted name of the type species is a primary homonym of an older species name (e.g., Helops tenebrioides Germar, 1813, the type species of Isopedus Stein, 1877, is a junior primary homonym of Helops tenebrioides Palisot de Beauvois, 1812). We refrain proposing replacement names for two raisons: first, the status of some senior homonyms, which in most cases involved pre-1820 names, is uncertain; second, in some cases the two homonyms belong to taxa in use but the names apply to taxa not considered congeneric after 1899, and the Commission (ICZN 1999: Article 23.9.5) mandates that the author(s) must not automatically replace the junior homonym but instead should refer to the Commission for a ruling. We hope that experts on the taxonomy of the taxa involved will look at all evidence and propose solutions to remove the homonymies as needed.

Genus-group names encountered in the literature that are not nomenclaturally available are listed in Appendix 1. Reasons for assigning the status of “nomenclaturally unavailable” for these names include: name proposed as an unmodified vernacular word, not appropriately latinized (ICZN 1999, Article 11.3, Recommendation 11A); name not used as valid when proposed (ICZN 1999, Article 11.5); name first published as a synonym and not treated before 1961 as an available name and adopted as the name of a taxon or treated as a senior homonym (ICZN 1999, Article 11.6); name published before 1931 without a description, a definition or an indication (Article 12.1); name proposed as a replacement name for an unavailable name (ICZN 1999, Article 12.2.3); name published after 1930 without a description, a definition or a bibliographic reference to such a published statement (ICZN 1999, Article 13.1); name published after 1930 without a type species (ICZN 1999, Article 13.3); replacement name published after 1930, for a name without valid typification, without designating a type species (ICZN 1999, Article 13.3.1); new nominal genus or subgenus published in a combined description with a new species not marked by “gen. nov., spec. nov.” or an equivalent expression (ICZN 1999, Article 13.4); name published after 1999 and not explicitly indicated as intentionally new (ICZN 1999, Article 16.1); rejected alternative original spelling (ICZN 1999, Article 24.2.3); original spelling corrected in the same work (ICZN 1999, Article 32.5.1.1); incorrect subsequent spelling that is not in prevailing usage (ICZN 1999, Article 33.3).

The symbol for fossil (†) and the acronym for plate (pl.) were used when relevant. The following initials were necessary to distinguish different authors with an identical family name: F.M. Brown, K.W. Brown, W. Kirby, W.F. Kirby, J.E. LeConte, J.L. LeConte, P.H. Lucas, R. Lucas, W.J. MacLeay, W.S. MacLeay, G.S. Medvedev, L.N. Medvedev, G.-A. Olivier, E. Olivier, F. Soldati, L. Soldati, C.G. Thomson, J. Thomson, C.O. Waterhouse, F.H. Waterhouse, G.R. Waterhouse. Note that the honorary title “Tjan-Schansky” was added by the Emperor of All Russia Nikolay II to the surname of A.P. Semenov’s father (and all his family members) in 1906 (M. Nabozhenko, pers. comm.). We use the author name “Semenov” for works published up to the end of 1906 and “Semenov-Tjan-Shansky” for those published after 1906. We also follow Bessudnova (2012: 102) and use the author’s surname “Fischer” for G. Fischer’s works up to the end of 1832 and use “Fischer von Waldheim” from 1833, the year he became a member of the Russian nobility.

Original literature for species-group names (i.e., type species) was verified; however, those works are not included in the “References” section because they are not the principal focus of this article, to conserve space and because they are, for the most part, available in recent publications. When the author(s) of a scientific name is different from the author(s) of the publication in which the name was proposed, the authorship of the scientific name is given in the format “Gray in Griffith and Pidgeon, 1832” (ICZN, Article 50.1.1 and Recommendation 51E) and only the reference pertaining to the whole work is given in the “References” section. Titles of references using a non-Latin alphabet were translated in English.

The name Xylotinus, as used by Sturm (1826: 59) to establish Xylotinus flabellicornis Sturm, 1826, the type species of Rhipidandrus J.L. LeConte, 1862, is considered an incorrect subsequent spelling for Xyletinus Latreille, 1810 [Coleoptera: Anobiidae] and is therefore not included here as an available genus-group name in Tenebrionidae (see Schwarz and Barber 1914: 175).

Two new synonymies were proposed in the fascicle on Coleoptera of the ‘Nomenclator Zoologicus’ by Agassiz (1846a). These synonymies are credited here to “Erichson in Agassiz” since Agassiz, who was not a beetle expert, acknowledged the contribution of the Coleoptera specialist W.F. Erichson, on the fascicle's title page, in the production of his catalogue.

The classification presented in Table 2 is a synthesis starting from works on Tenebrionidae family-group names (e.g., Bouchard et al. 2005, 2011; Bouchard and Bousquet 2020a) with additional data published in recent regional catalogues (e.g., Matthews and Bouchard 2008; Bousquet et al. 2018; Iwan et al. 2020), on fossils (Nabozhenko 2019), as well as on the diversity, taxonomy and phylogenetics of various clades (e.g., Bremer and Lillig 2014; Aalbu et al. 2017, 2018; Kamiński et al. 2019a, b, c, 2021b; Matthews and Lawrence 2019; Lumen et al. 2020; Lillig and Bremer 2021; Gearner et al. 2021). Only nomenclaturally available names are included in Table 2 wherein the valid genus-group names are listed in alphabetical order under each valid family-group name and the synonyms (preceded by “=”) are given in chronological order. Valid subgenera are given following the acronym “SG”.

The world’s major biogeographical realms, as defined by Olson et al. (2001), were used to record the overall distribution of each valid genus and subgenus (Table 2). The maps showing the borders of each realm (Figs 1–5) were produced with the free and open source software QGIS (version 3.10) using the layer Terrestrial Ecoregions of the World (WWF 2012).

Figure 1. 

Map showing the biogeographic realms used to record the distribution of each valid genus and subgenus of Tenebrionidae (see Table 2). Blue (dark): Palaearctic; blue (pale): Australasia; green: Neotropic; orange: Afrotropic; red: Nearctic; yellow: Indo-Malay (see Olson et al. (2001: fig. 1) for the boundaries of the Oceania biogeographic realm). Figures 2–5 show closeup maps of boundary areas. The Antarctic realm is excluded since none of the valid Tenebrionidae genera and subgenera are distributed therein.

Figure 2. 

Closeup map showing the boundary between the Nearctic and Neotropic biogeographic realms. Countries with two biogeographic realms are named.

Figure 3. 

Closeup map showing the boundary between the Palaearctic and Afrotropic biogeographic realms. Countries with two biogeographic realms are named.

Figure 4. 

Closeup map showing the boundary between the Palaearctic and Indo-Malay biogeographic realms. Countries with two biogeographic realms are named.

Figure 5. 

Closeup map showing the boundary between the Indo-Malay and Australasia biogeographic realms. Countries with two biogeographic realms are named.

We tried to establish the date of publication of works listed in this catalogue as accurately as possible. In the References section, publication dates are listed after each reference in square brackets “[]” and preceded by DP (i.e., date of publication), unless only the year was found. These dates are either specific dates of publication (e.g., extracted from the works themselves or the journal wrappers, title pages, footers) or are the earliest known publication dates (e.g., extracted from recording journals or accounts of society meetings). In the latter case, the date is preceded by the word “by.” Sources of information for the dates of publication from societies, recording journals, and works are mentioned below.

The family Tenebrionidae contains 4122 nomenclaturally available genus-group names (see Table 2 and List of available genus-group names in Tenebrionidae Latreille, 1802 below). Of the 2307 valid genera, 33 are extinct. A total of 761 subgenera are currently used as valid. The subfamily Pimeliinae contains the highest number of valid genera (n = 578) followed by Stenochiinae (n = 394), Tenebrioninae (n = 349), Blaptinae (n = 300), Lagriinae (n = 273), Alleculinae (n = 231) and Diaperinae (n = 128). The other four subfamilies contain few genera (Phrenapatinae = 28, Zolodininae = 3, Kuhitangiinae = 2 and Nilioninae = 1). Twenty valid genera could not be confidently placed in a subfamily and are included here as Tenebrionidae incertae sedis. The Afrotropic biogeographical realm is the most diverse with 1022 valid extant genus-group taxa (755 genera, 267 subgenera; see Table 2). The Palaearctic, Indo-Malay, and Neotropic realms follow with 925 (545 genera, 380 subgenera), 610 (501, 109) and 518 (428, 90) valid extant genus-group taxa respectively. The lowest number of valid extant genus-group taxa are in Australasia with 348 (310 genera, 38 subgenera), the Nearctic with 279 (206, 73) and Oceania with 62 (52, 10).