Phelister Marseul, 1854 in Cuba: frst West Indies records of Phelister completus Schmidt, 1893, and notes on other Cuban species (Coleoptera, Histeridae, Histerinae) Yoandri S. Megna 1 , Yunier Lamoth-Mayet 2 , Michael S. Caterino 2 , Tomáš Lackner 3 1 Departamento de Biología, Universidad de Oriente, Patricio Lumumba s/n, Santiago de Cuba, Cuba. 2 Laboratorio de Criminalística de Santiago de Cuba, Calle 11, Esquina 12, Cuba. 3 Department of Plant & Environmental Sciences, Clemson University, Clemson, SC 29634 USA. 4 Zoo- logische Staatssammlung, Munchhausenstrasse 21, D-81247 Munich, Germany. Corresponding author: Yoandri S. Megna, ysmegna@gmail.com Abstract We present a key to the three species of the genus Phelister Marseul, 1854 (Coleoptera, Histeridae), occurring in Cuba along with diagnoses and habitus drawings. All three species are newly recorded for the cadaveric fauna in Cuba. In addition, we address the taxonomic composition and distribution of the genus Phelister in the country. Phelister completus Schmidt, 1893 from the West Indies is recorded for the frst time from Cuba. Keywords Exosternini, faunistics, new records, taxonomy Academic editor: Bruno Clarkson | Received 29 September 2020 | Accepted 17 November 2020 | Published 6 January 2021 Citation: Megna YS, Lamoth-Mayet Y, Caterino MS, Lackner T (2021) Phelister Marseul, 1854 in Cuba: frst West Indies records of Phelister completus Schmidt, 1893, and notes on other Cuban species (Coleoptera, Histeridae, Histerinae). Check List 17 (1): 39–44. https://doi.org/10. 15560/17.1.39 Introduction The clown beetles in the genus Phelister Marseul, 1854 are small Histerinae (Histeridae) roughly characterized by the presence of a projecting mesoventral margin and a simple annulated antennal club (Kovarik and Caterino 2001). The group is clearly non-monophyletic and lacks diagnostic apomorphies (Caterino and Tishechkin 2015). To date, Phelister comprises 95 species in the New World (Caterino and Tishechkin 2019), with the majority of the diversity in South America. Hitherto, the genus Phelister has been represented in Cuba only by Phelister haemorrhous Marseul, 1854 and Phelister panamensis LeConte, 1859 (Sokolov 2005; Caterino and Tishechkin 2019). However, the actual number is probably somewhat higher, since the Cuban as well as Caribbean Phelister are largely understudied. Many histerid beetles occur on carrion during both fresh and advanced stages of decomposition (Kovarik and Caterino 2016; Correa et al. 2020). However, little is known about the associations of Phelister species in Cuba. A paucity of information on this diverse group of beetles prompted this study. We, therefore, present here a summary of previously published and new information on members of the genus Phelister in Cuba, including general information on potential forensic importance, zoogeography, and bionomics. We also provide a key to distinguish the Cuban species of Phelister. Check List 17 (1): 39–44 https://doi.org/10.15560/17.1.39 © The authors. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY 4.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. NOTES ON GEOGRAPHIC DISTRIBUTION