| Sonoma | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Sonoma squamishorum | |
Scientific classification  | |
| Kingdom: | Animalia |
| Clade: | Euarthropoda |
| Class: | Insecta |
| Order: | Coleoptera |
| Family: | Staphylinidae |
| Supertribe: | Faronitae |
| Genus: | Sonoma Casey, 1886 |
Sonoma is a genus of North American rove beetles in the subfamily Pselaphinae. At least 57 species are known—the majority from the Pacific Slope, ranging from Southern California to Alaska—with other species occurring in the Appalachians and the Eastern United States. [1] [2] [3]
The rove beetles are a family (Staphylinidae) of beetles, primarily distinguished by their short elytra that typically leave more than half of their abdomens exposed. With roughly 63,000 species in thousands of genera, the group is currently recognized as the largest extant family of beetles. It is an ancient group, with fossilized rove beetles known from the Triassic, 200 million years ago, and possibly even earlier if the genus Leehermania proves to be a member of this family. They are an ecologically and morphologically diverse group of beetles, and commonly encountered in terrestrial ecosystems.
Pselaphinae are a subfamily of beetles in the family Staphylinidae, the rove beetles. The group was originally regarded as a separate family named Pselaphidae. Newton and Thayer (1995) placed them in the Omaliine group of the family Staphylinidae based on shared morphological characters.
