Belongs within: Adephaga.
Contains: Trachypachidae, Cicindelidae, Carabidae.
The Geadephaga are a lineage of terrestrial, mostly predatory, adephagan beetles supported, albeit weakly, by molecular analysis. Most Geadephaga are classified in the large and diverse family Carabidae, the ground beetles. Authors have differed on whether other groups such as Trachypachidae and Cicindelidae should be included within Carabidae or treated as separate families.
The Mesozoic Eodromeinae have historically been included within the Trachypachidae but a phylogenetic analysis by Beutel et al. (2013) placed at least some eodromeines outside the geadephagan crown clade. A similar position was occupied by the Jurassic Timarchopsis aquaticus, previously classified in the extinct dytiscoid family Coptoclavidae. Crown-group Geadephaga are united by having a head no longer than wide and an antenna-cleaning structure on the protibia. Timarchopsis is associated with crown-group Geadephaga by the presence of eyes that bulge outwards from the contour of the head (Beutel et al. 2013). Other taxa previously included in a subfamily Timarchopsinae were identified by Beutel et al. (2013) as true coptoclavids.
Sogdodromeus altus of the Triassic of central Asia is among the earliest of all known Adephaga (Lawrence et al. 1987). Ademosynoides asiaticus is even older, from the Late Permian or earliest Triassic of Siberia, but its inclusion in the Eodromeinae is more questionable (Beutel et al. 2013).
<==Geadephaga [Geodephaga]
|--+--+--TrachypachidaeVB21
| | `--+--CicindelidaeMW15
| | `--CarabidaeBW13
| `--Timarchopsis Brauer, Redtenbacher & Ganglbauer 1989 [=Necronectes Ponamarenko 1977 (preoc.)]BW13
| |--T. aquaticus (Ponomarenko 1977)BW13
| `--T. sainshandensis Ponomarenko 1987RJ93
`--EodromeinaeBW13
|--Sogdodromeus altusLM87, RJ93
|--KaradromeusBW13
|--Eodromeus robustusBW13
|--Sinodromeus liutiaogouensis Wang, Zhang & Ponomarenko 2012BW13
`--AdemosynoidesBW13
|--A. asiaticus Martynov 1936BW13
`--A. juxta Lin 1986RJ93
*Type species of generic name indicated
References
[BW13] Beutel, R. G., B. Wang, J.-J. Tan, S.-Q. Ge, D. Ren & X.-K. Yang. 2013. On the phylogeny and evolution of Mesozoic and extant lineages of Adephaga (Coleoptera, Insecta). Cladistics 29 (2): 147–165.
[LM87] Lawrence, J. F., B. P. Moore, J. E. Pyke & T. A. Weir. 1987. Zoological Catalogue of Australia vol. 4. Coleoptera: Archostemata, Myxophaga and Adephaga. Australian Government Publishing Service: Canberra.
[MW15] McKenna, D. D., A. L. Wild, K. Kanda, C. L. Bellamy, R. G. Beutel, M. S. Caterino, C. W. Farnum, D. C. Hawks, M. A. Ivie, M. L. Jameson, R. A. B. Leschen, A. E. Marvaldi, J. V. McHugh, A. F. Newton, J. A. Robertson, M. K. Thayer, M. F. Whiting, J. F. Lawrence, A. Ślipiński, D. R. Maddison & B. D. Farrell. 2015. The beetle tree of life reveals that Coleoptera survived end-Permian mass extinction to diversify during the Cretaceous terrestrial revolution. Systematic Entomology 40 (4): 835–880.
[RJ93] Ross, A. J., & E. A. Jarzembowski. 1993. Arthropoda (Hexapoda; Insecta). In: Benton, M. J. (ed.) The Fossil Record 2 pp. 363–426. Chapman & Hall: London.
[VB21] Vasilikopoulos, A., M. Balke, S. Kukowka, J. M. Pflug, S. Martin, K. Meusemann, L. Hendrich, C. Mayer, D. R. Maddison, O. Niehuis, R. G. Beutel & B. Misof. 2021. Phylogenomic analyses clarify the pattern of evolution of Adephaga (Coleoptera) and highlight phylogenetic artefacts due to model misspecification and excessive data trimming. Systematic Entomology 46: 991–1018.