Melanterius inconspicuus ( Lea, 1899 )

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 : 16-18

Melanterius inconspicuus ( Lea, 1899)

( Figs. 30–31 )

Melanteriosoma inconspicuum Lea, 1899: 268

This species was described from Glen Innes in New South Wales and is also recorded from Victoria (a specimen in the ANIC from Noble Park in Melbourne), and we collected two specimens in Queensland. A female from Sydney in the ANIC, identified as Melanterius uniseriatus by Lea, represents the same species, and the synonymy of uniseriatus with costatus (see above) therefore needs re-evaluation. The species is very similar to M. costatus , sharing the conspicuous ventral carina between the meso- and metacoxae, but it differs in being slightly smaller and having interstriae 3 and 5 not distinctly costate and no rows of conspicuous black setae along the elytral suture.

Its penis ( Fig. 31 ) differs significantly from that of M. costatus in the body having slightly curved sides and an attenuated, narrowly rounded apex.

It was collected on A. dealbata and A. decurrens during M. van den Berg’s original survey (mostly under bark), and a short series was found by S. Neser in Canberra in 1993 in Uromycladium galls on an unidentified Acacia species. We collected the species on Acacia fulva in New South Wales and on A. fimbriata and A. irrorata in Queensland, but only as single specimens ( Table 1).

Figures

FIGURES 28 – 31. Dorsal view of habitus and aedeagi of Melanterius costipennis Lea and M. inconspicuus (Lea). 28 – 29: M. costipennis; 28: male (Tasmania, Hobart); 29: aedeagus (Victoria, Cobden). 30 – 31: M. inconspicuus; 30: male (New South Wales, Yengo NP); 31: adeagus (New South Wales, Yengo NP).