Procas picipes (Marsham)

Thompson, Richard T., 2006, A revision of the weevil genus Procas Stephens (Coleoptera: Curculionoidea: Erirhinidae), Zootaxa 1234 (1), pp. 1-63 : 16-17

Procas picipes (Marsham)

Curculio picipes Marsham, 1802: 272 .

Description

Length 3.5–6.9 mm. Head seldom with any trace of a frontal pit; rostrum not, or only slightly, longer than pronotum, usually with distinct median carina, often extending for most of its length; nasal plate without a distinct median carinula; sides very weakly tapering anteriad and often with faint constriction just before pre­apical expansion.

Antennae with funicle segment 2 × 1.2–1.8 as long as 3; segment 7 quadrate (weakly transverse in small specimens).

Pronotum with or without a smooth median line; punctures on disc fairly regular, with hexagonal interspaces.

Vestiture of elytra uniformly variegated, never with larger scattered suberect white setae ( Fig. 5 ); scutellum only rarely white; setae at sides of prothorax, above coxae, mostly bi­ or multifid.

Terminalia. Column of male sternite 8 with elongate, straight or sinuous, flexible processes ( Figs 74–82 ); sternite 8 of female with pigmented areas convergent or fused, apical setae large (<0.1 mm long)( Figs 24, 25 , 27–34 ); spermatheca with elongate tapering gland­lobe.

Comments

In this species antennal funicle segment 2 is, on average, longer, in relation to 3, than in the other species. In many specimens the pre­apical expansion of the upperside of the rostrum is displaced anteriad of the expansion of the underside, so that the rims of the latter are narrowly exposed when viewed directly from above. In other species the expansions coincide exactly. It is interesting that this character, first noticed by my colleague, Roger Booth, was used by Calder and Sands (1985: figs 5, 7) to separate two species of the South American erirhinid Cyrtobagous .

The range of P. picipes extends from Spain to Azerbaijan and the Middle East. I have seen enough material to convince me that three allopatric forms of this species exist, one in western Europe, another in the Russian Federation and a third in the Middle East. These forms differ chiefly in the vestiture of the tibiae, as indicated in the key (above, p.13). Although some variation has been detected in the shape of the duct­lobe of the spermatheca, this is not supported by any differences in male sternite 8. Moreover, the differences in vestiture of the tibiae seem to show a west­east progression from banded to uniform. For these reasons I treat these three forms as subspecies.

Figures

FIGURES 1–8. 1. Habitus, dorsal, of Procas picipes levantinus; 2–8. Elytra, dorsal, of (2) P. p. levantinus, (3) P. granulicollis (normal form), (4) ditto (‘shaggy’ form), (5) P. p. picipes, (6) P. lecontei, (7) P. armillatus, (8) P. biguttatus.

FIGURES 74–85. Sternite 8 of male of Procas p. picipes from (74, 75) England, Brighton, (76) France, Marseille, (77) Italy, Lucera, (78) Italy, Mastro Marco; P. p. steveni from (79, 80) Azerbaijan, (81) Ukraine, Odessa; P. p. levantinus from (82) Israel, Jerusalem; P. granulicollis from (83, 84) Wales, (85) Spain. Scale­bar = 0.2 mm.

FIGURES 21–26. Sternite 8 of female of (21) Procas granulicollis, ‘shaggy’ form from Spain, Cancas, (22) normal form from Wales, Carn Gefalt, (23) ditto, from Spain; (24) P. picipes levantinus from Israel, Jerusalem, (25) ditto from Jordan, Amman; (26) P. michaelis from Spain, Puente. Scale­bar = 0.2 mm.

FIGURES 27–34. Sternite 8 of female of Procas p. picipes from (27, 28) England, Brighton, (29) France, Marseille, (30) Spain, Barcelona, (31) Germany, Duben; P. p. steveni from (32) Russia, Rostov, (33) Caucasus, (34) Azerbaijan. Scale­bar = 0.2 mm.