Meligethinus, Grouvelle, 1906

Sabatelli, Simone, Liu, Meike, Cline, Andrew Richard, Lasoń, Andrzej, Macuvele, Suzana, Muambalo, Kisimenda, Chuquela, Lucilia & Audisio, Paolo, 2020, Palms and pollen beetles: two new anthophilous beetle species of Meligethinus from Mozambique (Coleoptera: Nitidulidae: Meligethinae), Zootaxa 4802 (1) : -

Meligethinus associations in southern Mozambique

To complete the objectives of the Project of Italy-Mozambique scientific Cooperation, we recently performed research (2017–2019) on a number of palm ( Arecaceae ) areas in southern Mozambique to search for Meligethinae . Until now, only the widespread palm species Phoenix reclinata Jacq. has been demonstrated to host Meligethinae . The two new species co-occur syntopically on male flowers of the same Phoenix reclinata trees in Inhaca Island, also in company with M. suffusus (Sabatelli et al., unpublished data), and with three more Meligethinus species.

Further research is planned to search for Meligethinae specimens on other widespread flowering palm species, such as Hyphaene petersiana Klotzsch ex Mart., 1845 , on the potentially autochthonous (and widely cultivated elsewhere in central Africa) Elaeis guineensis Jacq. (see Jelínek 1992), and especially on the rare and threatened giant palm Raphia australis Oberm. & Strey , which is endemic to this region (Maputo area in Mozambique and Kosi Bay area in northern KwaZulu-Natal). The giant inflorescences are produced once in its lifetime and are temporally unpredictable ( Coates Palgrave 2002), but are most likely to occur during spring.

The following is a list of Meligethinus species collected in southeastern Mozambique on male specimens of Phoenix reclinata . The collecting localities are listed in Table 1 (geographic details and data are in the examined material for the two new species described). Table 1 also reports the percentages of each Meligethinus species (with numbers of individuals) found in each locality: M. dolosus Grouvelle, 1919 , M. hamerlae sp. nov., M. humeralis Grouvelle, 1906 , M. mondlanei sp. nov., M. peringueyi ( Grouvelle, 1919) , and M. suffusus Kirejtshuk, 1980 .

Percentages of each species are similar in the two studied areas, with the only exception of M. hamerlae sp. nov., which is apparently absent outside Inhaca Island (where it is the rarest species). Meligethinus dolosus , M. peringueyi , and M. suffusus appear to be the dominant species, while the remaining taxa ( M. mondlanei sp. nov. and M. humeralis ) are more marginally represented in our collecting efforts.