Sulcophanaeus

Sulcophanaeus
	Sulcophanaeus imperator imperator
Scientific classification
Kingdom:	Animalia
Phylum:	Arthropoda
Class:	Insecta
Order:	Coleoptera
Family:	Scarabaeidae
Genus:	Sulcophanaeus; Olsoufieff, 1924

Sulcophanaeus is a genus of beetles belonging to the family Scarabaeidae. This genus has a Neotropical distribution (Central and Southern America).^[1]

Species

Sulcophanaeus comprises five species groups (faunus, carnifex, auricollis, imperator and menelas) and about 15 valid species:^[1]^[2]

Sulcophanaeus actaeon (Erichson, 1847)
Sulcophanaeus auricollis (von Harold, 1880)
Sulcophanaeus batesi (von Harold, 1868)
Sulcophanaeus carnifex (Linnaeus, 1758)
Sulcophanaeus chryseicollis (von Harold, 1863)
Sulcophanaeus columbi (W.S. MacLeay, 1819)
Sulcophanaeus faunus (Fabricius, 1775)
Sulcophanaeus imperator (Chevrolat, 1844)
Sulcophanaeus leander (Waterhouse, 1891)
Sulcophanaeus menelas (Laporte de Castelnau, 1840)
Sulcophanaeus miyashitai Arnaud, 2002
Sulcophanaeus noctis (Bates, 1887)
Sulcophanaeus rhadamanthus (von Harold, 1875)
Sulcophanaeus steinheili (von Harold, 1875)
Sulcophanaeus velutinus (Murray, 1856)

Description

Species within this genus can reach a length of 20–25 millimetres (0.79–0.98 in). They are short and powerful dung beetles. This genus includes some particularly colorful species, many have metallic colors, others are black. Especially the males tend to have horns and outgrowths of various kinds of head and pronotum. Often male has a long, curved horns on his forehead. Pronotum is much broader than long. Elytra are short and broad with deep longitudinal wrinkles. They are diurnal, coprophagous species.^[3]