The family Dermestidae Latreille 1804 contains over 1700 species worldwide (Háva 2021). The subfamily Orphilinae
LeConte 1861 is small containing only two genera: Ranolus (Blair 1929) with seven species distributed across Australasia
and Indonesia, and Orphilus Erichson 1846 with six species from the Palaearctic and Nearctic (Háva 2021). Of the
Orphilus species, O. ater Erichson 1846 and O. subnitidus LeConte 1861 occur in North America, O. kabakovi Háva and
Kadej 2014 occurs in Asia, whilst O. africanus Háva 2005, O. beali Zhantiev 2001, and O. niger (Rossi 1790) are found
in Europe (Háva 2021).
Orphilus species externally are very similar to each other, and this has most likely impeded the development of the
taxonomy of the genus, at least in the Palaearctic. Until 2000, all individuals from the Palaearctic were believed to belong
to the same species, O. niger. Since 2000, two further species have been discovered (Zhantiev 2001; Hava 2005) through
dissection of male genitalia, which show substantial structural differences among species. During a survey of over 150
specimens held in the collection of one of us (AH), a further Orphilus species, O. aegeanus, was discovered. In the current
study, we describe O. aegeanus and compare it to the most likely confusion species, O. africanus.