Syndicus (Syndicus) soesilae (Makhan & Ezzatpanah) Jałoszyński, 2014

Jałoszyński, Paweł, 2014, Oriental Horaeomorphus Schaufuss: a new species, synonymic notes and distributional synopsis (Coleoptera: Staphylinidae: Scydmaeninae), Raffles Bulletin of Zoology 62, pp. 83-88 : 86

Syndicus (Syndicus) soesilae (Makhan & Ezzatpanah) , new combination

Horaeomorphus soesilae Makhan & Ezzatpanah, 2011: 1 , figs. 1–3.

Remarks. Recently Makhan & Ezzatpanah (2011) described a new species of Horaeomorphus from the island of Java, Indonesia. On the basis of errors committed in that paper it is evident that the authors have a highly fragmentary knowledge of Oriental Scydmaeninae , do not know the large literature on the subject, and did not even care to properly diagnose their new species to make it distinguishable from its congeners. Although a comprehensive revision of Horaeomorphus of the Malay sub-region has been published ( Jałoszyński, 2006a) and a number of other papers dealing with all Asian species are available ( Schaufuss, 1889; Franz, 1973, 1974, 1984, 1985, 1992; Jałoszyński, 2002, 2003, 2004a, 2009a; Jałoszyński & Nomura, 2004, 2008; Vít, 2004; Jałoszyński et al., 2007), some of them containing a comprehensive discussion of diagnostic characters of Horaeomorphus, Makhan & Ezzatpanah cited only one reference, irrelevant to the taxon they dealt with. The illustrations of Horaeomorphus soesilae (photos of the dorsal habitus and the aedeagus) provided in the original description show clearly a representative of the unmistakable (or so it seemed) genus Syndicus Schaufuss. Syndicus is not only easily recognisable on the basis of its remarkable body shape, clearly different than that of any Horaeomorphus , but first of all it differs from all genera of Cyrtoscydmini in having pseudo-10-segmented antennae (all other genera in this tribe, including Horaeomorphus , have clearly 11-segmented antennae). The minute antennomere XI in Syndicus is highly reduced and inserted in the preceding antennomere in such a way that in the nominotypical subgenus antennomeres X and XI appear as a single antennomere, with only an indistinct septum visible between the apex of X and the base of XI. The number of antennomeres (apparently 10) can easily be counted on fig. 1 of Makhan & Ezzatpanah, and in case of any doubts the authors themselves provide the crucial data: “Antennae brown, 10-segmented” and “ Horaeomorphus soesilae Makhan & Ezzatpanah , sp. nov. is the first species with 10 antennal segments. The other species from the Oriental region have 11 antennal segments and the male genitalia are different”. It seems that Makhan & Ezzatpanah are simply not aware of the fact that the genus Syndicus even exists, and certainly the authors do not know (and in consequence do not cite) the large literature related to this genus (which is one of the best studied in the Oriental region), including the world revision ( Jałoszyński, 2004b) and a number of later papers ( Jałoszyński, 2006b, 2008, 2009b, 2011a, 2011b; Jałoszyński & Nomura, 2006). The aedeagus illustrated in figs. 2, 3 of Makhan & Ezzatpanah (2011) and the extremely short “description” without a clear diagnosis make it impossible to distinguish Syndicus soesilae from its numerous congeners. A further study is necessary to verify whether this is really a new species or merely a synonym.