A NEW PSEUDANOPHPHALMUS FROM 
AN EPIGEAN ENVIRONMENT IN WEST VIRGINIA 
(COLEOPTERA: CARABIDAE) 1 
By Thomas C. Barr, Jr. 
Department of Zoology, University of Kentucky 
Eyeless, rufotestaceous cave beetles of the genus Pseudanophthalnius 
(Trechini) are widespread in the Appalachian valley and Interior 
Low Plateaus (Barr, 1965; Jeannel, 1949; Valentine, 1945). Geo- 
graphic isolation in different cave systems has led to an unusually 
large number of species, presumably the slightly modified descendants 
of edaphic ancestors which existed outside caves during the cold, 
wet climates of Pleistocene glacial maxima (Barr, 1965; Jeannel, 
1949). Numerous species of other genera of trechine beetles, show- 
ing a more or less pronounced rudimentation of eyes and melanin 
pigments, are known from habitats other than caves, in mountainous 
glacial refugia of Europe and Japan (Jeannel, 1926-1930; Ueno and 
Baba, 1965). One species group of Pseudanophthalnius — not con- 
fined to caves but exhibiting similar reduction of eyes and pigment — 
inhabits humus and the upper soil strata at altitudes above 1000 
meters in the Carpathians and Transylvanian Alps of eastern Europe 
(Barr, 1964). Blind, depigmented trechines have not been previously 
reported from Nearctic regions except in caves, although Barr ( 1965) 
recently commented: “It is conceivable that intensive collecting of 
endogenous carabids in the higher mountains of West Virginia and 
southwestern Virginia might reveal one or more surviving epigean 
populations of Pseudanophthalnius 
The purpose of this paper is to report the discovery of an eyeless, 
rufotestaceous, previously undescribed species of Pseudanophthalnius 
in an endogean habitat in the mountains of Pocahontas Co., West 
Virginia, and briefly to indicate its ecological and evolutionary signifi- 
cance. Three specimens were obtained from wet sand and gravel 
beneath medium-sized stones at the margin of a small brook on the 
east slope of Kennison Mountain, 28 April 1967. The locality is 
7.2 kilometers NNE of Lobelia, in the Yew Mountains, Mononga- 
hela National Forest, about 300 meters west of the southwest corner 
of the Cranberry Glades, at an elevation of IOOO meters. Soil and 
This investigation was supported by a grant from the National Science 
Foundation (GB-5521). 
Manuscript received by the editor May 12, 1967 
