Chicago Wilderness??

Chicago Wilderness is both a regional nature reserve and a consortium of over 140 institutions and agencies collaborating to learn about, educate the public about, and manage the natural environments of the Chicago area. Information about all these aspects is available at the Chicago Wilderness website.

Rove and carrion beetles in Chicago Wilderness

There was considerable work done in the 1940s-1960s on rove beetles and their relatives in the Chicago area, mainly by the late Orlando Park (of Northwestern University) and his students and colleagues. Some of this was formally published, but far from all of it, and there have not been any published syntheses of available information. Museum specimens from this area have been included in most of the numerous scientific papers on particular groups of rove beetles (family Staphylinidae) and carrion beetles (family Silphidae) published over the last century. This information is, however, widely scattered in the technical literature. In many cases, additional specimens have been collected in new localities since those publications, so even the published record is a far from complete representation of the region's past and present fauna. This page and its associated pages and files present a summary of species recorded from the Chicago area and a list of species collected in recent years in the Palos Hills area of Cook County, Illinois, as part of a multidisciplinary research project based at the Field Museum.

The classification of the large family Staphylinidae has undergone many changes in the last few decades. The lists presented here follow the classification used in the staphylinid chapter of the recently published book American Beetles:

Newton, A. F., M. K. Thayer, J. S. Ashe (Aleocharinae), and D. S. Chandler (Pselaphinae). 2000. Family 22. Staphylinidae Latreille, 1802, pp. 272-418. In: Arnett, R. H., Jr. and M. C. Thomas, eds., American Beetles, Volume 1, Archostemata, Myxophaga, Adephaga, Polyphaga: Staphyliniformia. CRC Press Ltd., Boca Raton, Florida. xv + 443 pp.

except for some changes in the subfamily Pselaphinae published more recently:

Chandler, D. S. 2001. Biology, morphology and systematics of the ant-like litter beetle genera of Australia (Coleoptera: Staphylinidae: Pselaphinae). Memoirs on Entomology, International 15: vii + 560 pp. Associated Publishers, Gainesville, Florida.

Chicago Wilderness Staphylinidae (more to come)

Creophilus maxillosus (Linnaeus) Image ©Margaret K. Thayer & Alfred F. Newton

The beetle family Silphidae is a much smaller one than Staphylinidae, with about a dozen species occurring in this area. All of these are associated with -- and most feed on -- carrion (dead animal flesh), so they are important "recyclers" in most ecosystems. They are phylogenetically very closely related to Staphylinidae, and probably should even be included in that family, so they were included in this project. As with Staphylinidae, the classification of the carrion beetles has changed quite a bit (mostly at the generic level) in the last several decades. The classification used follows the silphid chapter of American Beetles:

Peck, S. B. 2000. Family 21. Silphidae Latreille, 1807, pp. 268-271. In: Arnett, R. H., Jr. and M. C. Thomas, eds., American Beetles, Volume 1, Archostemata, Myxophaga, Adephaga, Polyphaga: Staphyliniformia. CRC Press Ltd., Boca Raton, Florida. xv + 443 pp.

Some Chicago Wilderness Silphidae Images ©Margaret K. Thayer
Necrodes surinamensis (Fabricius) (male)	Necrophila americana (Linnaeus)
Nicrophorus orbicollis Say	Nicrophorus tomentosus Weber