Oedichirus crocodilus, Rougemont, 2018

Rougemont, Guillaume de, 2018, New species and records of African and Lemurian Oedichirus ERICHSON (Staphylinidae, Paederinae, Procirrina), Linzer biologische Beiträge 50 (1), pp. 447-460 : 448-449

Oedichirus crocodilus nov.sp. (Figs 2)

♂ Holotype: ETHIOPIA 1974 ROUGEMONT ♀ Kaffa prov., Gibbie R., 175 km W. Addis Abeba ♀ HOLOTYPE Oedichirus crocodilus des. 2014 G. de Rougemont [ CRO] .

D e s c r i p t i o n: length: 9 mm; length of fore-body: 4; length of head: 0.9; breadth of head: 1.12; length of pronotum: 1.4; breadth of pronotum: 1.1; length of elytron: 1.5; breadth of elytra: 1.32. Head, elytra and abdominal urites VII-IX black, pronotum and urites III-VI red; mouthparts and antennae dark testaceous; legs testaceous, knees broadly infuscate. Dorsal surfaces devoid of microsculpture except on abdominal tergites VII-VIII. Pubescence long, pale erect. Habitus: Fig. 2.

Head moderately transverse; eyes large; post-ocular carina and groove well developed, extending to posterior margin of eye, not forming an angle; puncturation of disc consisting of a pair of small frontal punctures, a few others near antennal tubercles, a group of larger punctures on vertex comprising a pair of arcuate series of four punctures enclosing two punctures, some small ocular punctures, an arcuate row of four punctures near base, and small punctures in the post-ocular grooves. Pronotum strongly elongate, the sides slightly concavely retracted to base; lateral margins not bordered; disc with a pair of series of five punctures each preceded by a cluster of a dozen smaller punctures, series of two large lateral punctures, and the usual small punctures along anterior and lateral margins. Fully winged, elytra ample, with well marked humeral angles, the sides a little dilated from humeral angles to 1♀ 3 rd the distance from posterior margin; puncturation as coarse as discal series of pronotum, and dense, the interstices everywhere narrower than diameter of punctures. Punctures of abdominal tergites arranged in three discrete rows of punctures behind anterior rows of short keels.

Male: abdominal sternite VII unmodified; sternite VIII: Fig. 2s8, the left half of apical emargination with a large comb of long spines; aedoeagus: Figs 2 al, 2av.

O. crocodilus nov.sp. is similar and close to O. zumpti BERNHAUER from Cameroon from which it differs by the puncturation of the head and pronotum: in O. zumpti the paired semi-circular series of punctures on the head are composed of five punctures each and enclose a single median puncture (4 and 2 punctures respectively in O. crocodilus ); in O. zumpti the discal series of the pronotum are composed of 6 large equally spaced punctures behind a cluster of a dozen smaller punctures, whereas in O. crocodilus there are only 6 anterior punctures and the series are of 5 punctures, the anterior puncture of the series being more distant from the next than the length of intervals between the four others. The aedoeagi of the two species are also similar, but the ventral processes are slightly different (cf. Figs 801, 802 in FAGEL 1970).