AN EYELESS SUBTERRANEAN BEETLE 
( PSEUD A NO PHTH A LMUS) 
FROM A KENTUCKY COAL MINE 
(COLEOPTERA: CARABIDAE: TRECHINAE)* 
By Thomas C. Barr, Jr. 
School of Biological Sciences, 
University of Kentucky 
Lexington, Kentucky 40506 
The trechine genus Pseudanophthalmus includes approximately 
240 species from caves of the Appalachian valley, Mississippian 
plateaus, and Bluegrass and Central Basin regions of eastern United 
States. Although the model of cave trechine speciation which I have 
developed for this fauna (Barr, 1967a, 1968, 1981, 1985) requires a 
two-step process of 1) local diversification in deep soil and 2) subse- 
quent isolation in nearby caves, the first stage was postulated on the 
basis of an abundant edaphobitic trechine fauna in Europe and 
elsewhere (see Jeannel, 1926-1930, for example). In eastern United 
States a single species of Pseudanophthalmus has been described 
from a non-cave habitat: P. sylvaticus occurs deep in the soil under 
large stones in mountain forests near Marlinton, West Virginia 
(Barr, 1967b). 
Existing distributions of cave Pseudanophthalmus species strongly 
suggest an ancestral Pleistocene refugium in the mixed meso- 
phytic forests of the Allegheny plateau (Barr, 1981, 1985). The dis- 
tinctly different lineages occupying caves of the Appalachian valley 
to the east of the plateau and those of the Interior Low Plateaus to 
the west of the Alleghenies indicate substantial local differentiation 
prior to cave colonization (Barr, 1981); the geographic clustering of 
related species suggests vicariance among cave descendants of these 
locally differentiated edaphobites (Barr, 1965, 1981, 1985). 
An integrated phylogeny of Pseudanophthalmus has thus far 
proven elusive, as though key pieces of a jigsaw puzzle were missing. 
Preliminary track analysis at the species group level thus shows a 
* Manuscript received by the editor December 15, 1985 
47 
