Current research: phylogenetic relationships of basal Leiodidae, beginning with the camiarine tribe Agyrtodini and its type genus Agyrtodes.

This tribe has a marked "Gondwanan" distribution, occurring in southeastern Australia, Tasmania, New Zealand, Southern Chile, and Argentina. These beetles are presently considered fairly plesiomorphic, lacking many of the synapomorphies which unite higher leiodid clades. Indeed, there are no known derived characters unique to Agyrtodini; currently, they are defined only by plesiomorphies.
Agyrtodes, as it presently stands, is a highly frustrating group of beetles. The genus itself is most likely paraphyletic, and has an interesting pan-Pacific austral distribution. Species-level identifications can be difficult, particularly given that the only published keys are out-of-date, incomplete, and primarily in French (e.g. Szymczakowski 1973, Jeannel 1936, 1957, etc). Early goals for this project include the creation of unified, well-illustrated keys to described species of Agyrtodes and genera of Agyrtodini, reflecting the classification scheme and taxonomic changes proposed by Newton (1998). After morphological and molecular data have been incorporated in a phylogenetic analysis of the tribe, new taxa will be described and further taxonomic changes will likely arise. Keys will be updated accordingly and published. I hope these will be of some assistance in faunal surveys, bioindicator projects, and other taxonomy-heavy endeavours in the Australian and South American regions where Agyrtodes are common.