Macrocopturus Heller, 1895: 19

Anzaldo, Salvatore S., 2017, Review of the genera of Conoderinae (Coleoptera, Curculionidae) from North America, Central America, and the Caribbean, ZooKeys 683, pp. 51-138 : 79-80

Macrocopturus Heller, 1895: 19 Figs 44 , 83

( Macrocopturus ) Heller, 1895: 19 [as subgenus of Copturus ]. Type species: Not yet designated.

( Cyphocopturus ) Heller, 1895: 19 [as subgenus of Copturus ]. Type species: Not yet designated.

( Eucopturus ) Heller, 1895: 20 [as subgenus of Copturus ]. Type species: Not yet designated.

( Lamellocopturus ) Heller, 1895: 19 [as subgenus of Copturus ]. Type species: Not yet designated.

Type species.

Copturus satyrus Gyllenhal, 1838 [by subsequent designation: Wibmer and O’Brien 1986: 20].

Gender.

Masculine.

Diagnosis.

Most of the specimens of this very large and variable genus can be identified by the combination of a second funicular article that is longer than the first, an unmodified mesoventrite, a carinate and ventrally toothed hind femur, and the absence of a profemoral striolate patch. A few Central American species (and several more in South America - Heller’s subgenera Lamellocopturus and Cyphocopturus ) have modification to the mesoventrite similar to Microzygops (e.g. Macrocopturus albidus (Champion, 1906)) but Champion did not assign them to one of Heller’s subgenera. Some smaller species can be difficult to distinguish from Lechriops but species of that genus in general tend to have a less spherical head (somewhat obliquely flattened above the rostral base) with comparatively smaller, more strongly acuminate eyes in addition to the modification to the mesoventrite.

Notes.

All species included in this genus were treated as Copturus until Wibmer and O’Brien (1986: 17), see “Notes” section for Copturus above for a clarification of name use. Heller (1895) divided the genus Copturus into six subgenera or species groups (including Macrocopturus ), reiterating Pascoe’s (1880: 494) comment on his own struggle with adequately constructing a subgeneric classification for this genus: " Copturus illustrates the difficulty of defining a large genus. Every character is liable to exception, not one appearing to have a generic value, although there is a common interresemblance which is not to be mistaken; the group, in fact, is a natural one, but which perhaps might, for the advantage of the systematist, be artificially divided into several genera." Heller noted the probable superficiality of his subgenera.

Macrocopturus is the most widespread genus in the Caribbean, being the only genus of Conoderinae recorded from the Bahamas and Jamaica. Four different putative mimicry complexes are present in Macrocopturus as presently defined ( Hespenheide 1995). Immature stages are described for Macrocopturus aguacatae (Kissinger, 1957) by Muñiz Vélez (1958) and M. burserophagus Muñiz-Vélez & Ordóñez-Reséndiz, 2010 by Muñiz-Vélez and Ordóñez-Reséndiz (2010).

Phylogenetic relationships.

Some of the described species are very similar in appearance to the following genera: Cylindrocopturus (e.g. the Mexican M. burserophagus which is placed in Macrocopturus because of the presence of a ventral femoral tooth), Copturomimus (which have a striolate region on the profemora), Lechriops , Hoplocopturus , and the South American genera Damurus Heller, 1895 ( Champion 1906b: 69, in footnote) and Copturosomus ( Champion 1906b: 69). Of those genera, Copturomimus , Lechriops , and Hoplocopturus are considered related in this paper, and Cylindrocopturus , which is currently in the Zygopini , is also probably a related lechriopine. The few observed specimens of South American Copturosomus are very similar to Macrocopturus and the genus Damurus was not observed in the course of this study, but was considered by Heller (1895: 55) to be related to Timorus (also currently in the Zygopini ) which Champion (1906: 33) in turn considered related to Macrocopturus .

Keys .

Champion 1906b: 69 (for Central America) and Heller 1895: 19 (for Central and South America).

Host associations.

Macrocopturus floridanus (Fall, 1906), known as "the mahogany notcher" ( Morton 1987: 191) is wood-boring as a larva and as an adult feeds on foliage of mahogany ( Meliaceae Juss.: Swietenia mahogany (L.) Jacq.) ( Morton 1987). Other species are known from avocado ( Lauraceae : Persea ) ( Kissinger 1957: 7, Muñiz V. 1965), Bursera citronella McVaugh & Rzed. ( Burseraceae Kunth) ( Muñiz-Vélez and Ordóñez-Reséndiz 2010), and Cecropia , Coussapoa , and Pourouma ( Urticaceae ) ( LaPierre 2002).

Described species.

Fifty-six species are known from the focal region, including one described by Hespenheide (1984), three by Zayas (1988), one by Muñiz-Vélez and Ordóñez-Reséndiz 2010, and one by Hespenheide (2017), and one species transferred from Archocopturus by Hespenheide (2005). An additional 101 species are known from South America ( Wibmer and O’Brien 1986: 272, with two additional species described by Rheinheimer (2011)).

Range.

USA: FL, Mexico, Guatemala, Belize, Honduras, Nicaragua, Costa Rica, Panama, Bahamas, Cuba ( Zayas 1988), Jamaica, Puerto Rico, Guadeloupe ( Hespenheide 1984); South America.

Figures

Figures 37 - 45. Variation in eye shape. 37 Trichodocerus brevilineatus [ARTSYS 0000609] with large, subcontiguous eyes that continue below rostral insertion 38 Cratosomus punctulatus mexicanus [ASUHIC 0031510] with relatively small, widely separated eyes 39 Lobops bonvouloiri [ARTSYS 0000658] with widely separated eyes and the frons concave between the upper half of the eye 40 Pseudopiazurus centraliamericanus [ASUHIC 0086627] with very large eyes that are contiguous in upper half 41 Pseudopinarus guyanensis [ASUHIC 0086636] with large, subcontiguous eyes and an arcuate carina on the vertex of the head 42 Acoptus suturalis [ASUHIC 0016914] with subcontiguous eyes separated at the top by a lanceolate space 43 Cylindrocopturinus pictus [SSAC 0001288] 44 Macrocopturus lynceus [SSAC 0001085] with very large, partially contiguous eyes 45 Microzygops nigrofasciatus [ARTSYS 0000802] with large eyes contiguous in the bottom 2 / 3 and widely separated at the top.

Figures 83 - 86. Lateral and dorsal habitus images of Lechriopini. 83 a-b Macrocopturus lynceus [SSAC 0001085] 84 a-b Macrolechriops spinicoxis [ARTSYS 0000529]. 85 a-b Microzurus championi [ASUHIC 0031507] 86 a-b Microzygops nigrofasciatus [ARTSYS 0000802]. Scale bars = 2 mm.