Anthia [SEP] parent taxon
Anthia
Anthia (common name Saber-toothed ground beetles) is a genus of the ground beetle family (Carabidae). Species of "Anthia" can spray a jet of formic acid up to , which if not treated, can cause blindness in animals which harass the beetles.
In general the beetles are large, armored, fast-moving, with prominent, powerful, sharp mandibles. Some are diurnal predators in semi-arid habitats, some are nocturnal.
The genus is one of a group of similar
Taxon in disguise
In bacteriology, a taxon in disguise is a species, genus or higher unit of biological classification whose evolutionary history reveals has evolved from another unit of similar or lower rank, making the parent unit paraphyletic. This happens when rapid evolution makes a new species appear radically different from the ancestral group, so that it is not (initially) recognised as belonging to the parent phylogenetic group, leaving the latter an evolutionary grade.
While the term is from bacteriology, parallel examples are found throughout the tree of