角胸牙甲是一群小型水棲甲蟲。牠們在水生鞘翅目昆蟲的演化上被認為是較早分化的類群，然而因為在全球的博物館中的標本藏量稀少，所以在過去少有科學家進行全球性的研究。在過去，科學家甚至不知道牠們如何在水域中生活。為了填補科學家對這群甲蟲知識的缺口，費卡契助理教授連同他的研究同僚檢查了倫敦自然史博物館、哈佛大學比較動物學博物館，以及維也納自然史博物館中的典藏。研究團隊發現這個類群除了分布在北美洲、南美洲、非洲、印度次大陸與中南半島外，海南島也是這群水生甲蟲的分布地點。費卡契助理教授推測，在未來，科學家或許可在台灣南部發現牠們的蹤影。

Epimetopidae is a small ancient family of water beetles, fulfilling the general idea of how old ancient evolutionary lineages should be: weird-looking, rare in collections, containing few species only, and with very limited idea how they do live. Martin Fikáček from our Department led the team of experts familiar with this group, including those from the Natural History Museum in London, Museum of Comparative Zoology at Harvard University, and the Natural History Museum in Vienna. The goal was clear: to try to get as much information as possible, analyse the evolutionary history, morphology and biology of this ancient group, and to evaluate what these data can tell us about the early evolution of water beetles. The closest locality of the family is from Hainan so far! Maybe we should try to find it along streams in southern Taiwan!

Reference:
Fikáček M., Matsumoto K., Perkins P., Prokin A., Sazhnev A., Litovkin S., Jäch M. A. (2021): The family Epimetopidae (Coleoptera: Hydrophiloidea): review of current knowledge, genus-level phylogeny, and taxonomic revision of Eupotemus. Acta Entomologica Musei Nationalis Pragae 61(1): 1-34. https://doi.org/10.37520/aemnp.2021.001