Galapagos Species Database
The Galapagos Species Database shares the information about the species from our Natural History Collections.
Pinostygus galapagoensis
escarabajo
A large, eyeless caveinhabiting species.
Predator; humid forest zone; August. This cave or deep crevice species descended from an unknown ancestor which is no longer in the epigean fauna of the islands. It is in a group which is composed of visually-hunting predators in tropical forest canopies. Of all Galápagos animals, this species has changed the most from its mainland ancestral condition.
Domain
Eukaryota
Kingdom
Animalia
Phylum
Arthropoda
Class
Insecta
Order
Coleoptera
Suborder
Polyphaga
Superfamily
Staphylinoidea
Family
Staphylinidae
Section
Pinophilini
Genus
Pinostygus
Species
galapagoensis
Taxon category: Accepted
Origin: Endemic
Map of specimen collection localities or observation records for this species in our collections database.
Distribution: Santa Cruz
- Campbell, J.M. Peck, S.B. (1989) Pinostygus galapagoensis, a new genus and species of eyeless rove beetle (Coleoptera: Staphylinidae: Paederinae) from a Cave in the Galapagos Islands, Ecuador. The Coleopterists Bull. 43(4): 397-405.
- Peck, S.B. (1990) Eyeless arthropods of the Galapagos Islands, Ecuador: Composition and origin of the cryptozoic fauna of a young, tropical, oceanic archipelago. Biotropica 22(4): 366-381.
- Peck, S.B. (2006) The Beetles of the Galápagos Islands, Ecuador: Evolution, Ecology, and Diversity (Insecta: Coleoptera) NRC Research Press, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada. 314 pp.
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This page should be cited as follows:
"Galapagos Species Database, Pinostygus galapagoensis", dataZone. Charles Darwin Foundation, https://datazone.darwinfoundation.org/en/checklist/?species=11455. Accessed 31 October 2026.