Melanterius oleosus Lea, 1928

Pinzón-Navarro, Sara V., Jennings, Debbie & Oberprieler, Rolf G., 2017, Host associations of Melanterius Erichson (Coleoptera: Curculionidae: Cleogonini), with a diagnosis and delimitation of the genus and description of five new species, Zootaxa 4298 (1), pp. 1-77 : 36

Melanterius oleosus Lea, 1928

( Figs. 63–64 )

Melanterius oleosus Lea, 1928: 121

This species was described from Sea Lake in northern Victoria and is also recorded from South Australia ( Lea , 1928). In the ANIC there is a specimen from Gol Gol in New South Wales (near Mildura), and we collected a single female in southern Queensland. The species is recognisable mainly by its elongate, sometimes partially confluent pronotal punctures. The body of the penis ( Fig. 64 ) is long and narrow, with a broadly rounded apex, a pair of small apical internal sclerites and a pair of long ones at the base.

No hosts have been recorded for it, but the fact that we collected it on an Acacia conferta shrub with green pods ( Table 1) suggests that its larvae may develop on the seeds of this plant species ( Table 2).

Figures

FIGURES 61 – 64. Dorsal view of habitus and aedeagi of Melanterius latipennis Lea and M. oleosus Lea. 61 – 62: M. latipennis; 61: male (Western Australia, Esperance); 62: aedeagus (Western Australia, Mt. Frankland National Park). 63 – 64: M. oleosus; 63: female (Queensland, Kogan-Condamine Road); 64: adeagus (New South Wales, Gol Gol).