Sphaerion iuasanga, Galileo, Maria Helena M., Martins, Ubirajara R. & Santos-Silva, Antonio, 2015

Galileo, Maria Helena M., Martins, Ubirajara R. & Santos-Silva, Antonio, 2015, Four new species of Cerambycidae (Coleoptera) from Bolivia and Brazil, Zootaxa 3985 (3), pp. 440-445 : 441

Sphaerion iuasanga sp. nov.

(Fig. 1)

Etymology. Tupi, íu = spine, asanga = short; allusive to the spine of antennomere III (compound species-group name, not Latinized name, indeclinable).

Description. Integument reddish-brown; head, scape, center of mesosternum and metasternum, and legs reddish-orange; elytra dark-brown.

Head. Integument sparsely pubescent; coarsely punctate, more conspicuously on vertex. Upper eye lobes with five rows of ommatidia; distance between lobes equal to three times width of one lobe; distance between lower eye lobes equal to 1.2 times distance between upper eye lobes. Antennae reaching apex of elytra approximately at middle of antennomere VII. Antennomeres III–IV with short spine at apex of internal angle.

Thorax. S ides of prothorax with small tubercle near middle. Pronotum with two tubercles, one at basal third, smooth on top, two at posterior half, elongated, curved, sparsely pubescent; centrally with oval, glabrous, shiny area, wider at posterior third; integument between tubercles punctate, denser on sides of prothorax. Meso- and metasternum with short, silky pubescence.

Elytra. Integument covered in dense, very short, silky pubescence; with small setiferous punctures, enclosed by brownish macula, near suture, sparser on basal and posterior third; apex obliquely truncate.

Legs. Femora clavate, with sparse piliferous punctures. Metatarsomere I as long as 1.25 times II–III together; metatarsomere V (without claws) as long as 0.75 times II–III together.

Abdomen. Urosternites covered with silky pubescence.

Dimensions in mm (male). Total length, 12.0; length of prothorax at center, 2.4; widest width of prothorax (between apices of tubercles), 2.8; anterior width of prothorax, 2.3; posterior width of prothorax, 2.1; humeral width, 3.1; elytral length, 8.6.

Type material. Holotype male from BOLIVIA, Santa Cruz: Buena Vista (4 km SSE, Hotel Flora and Fauna, 17°29’S / 63°39’W, 300–400 m), 17–20.IX.2011, Wappes & Skillman col. ( MNKM).

Remarks. Sphaerion iuasanga sp. nov. resembles S. sladeni Gahan,1903 and S. rusticum Burmeister, 1865 by the reddish-brown to dark-brown integument. It differs from them by the reddish-orange head, scape, and legs contrasting with the rest of the integument; center of pronotum glabrous, shining from base to apex, wider at posterior third. In S. sladeni and S. rusticum , the scape and legs are similar in color to the rest of the integument and the center of pronotum has a short, narrow shining area. It can be included in the alternative of couplet 3, with these two species, in Martins (2005) key.