A new beetle: Tychobythinus inopinatus

The beetle family Staphylinidae, better known as rove beetles, is currently the largest group of beetles known. It contains about 60000 species in thousands of genera. Most rove beetles are predators of insects and other kinds of invertebrates, living in forest leaf litter and similar kinds of decaying plant matter. They are also commonly found under stones, and around freshwater and oceanic margins.

Today's new species is a cave dwelling representative found in the Grotta Monello in Sicily, Italy.  Although the authors give no explanation for the species name, my guess is they used the the latin word inopinatus which means unexpected.

For the experts: A new troglobitic species of the subfamily Pselaphinae (Coleoptera: Staphylinidae), Tychobythinus inopinatus sp. nov., is described from Monello Cave (Syracuse, Syracuse Province, Sicily). Major diagnostic features are illustrated based on both male and female specimens. The new species shows some adaptations to cave life, i.e., pale brown colour; setation consisting of long and flattened setae and suberect shorter setae; absence of wings; and anophthalmy and elongate legs and antennae. It can be easily separated from the related taxa by the different shapes of the head, palpi, gular carina of the male, and aedeagus. Tychobythinus inopinatus sp. nov. is known only from Monello Cave, a limestone cave in the south-eastern Sicily.