Furcicupes, Tan & Ren, 2006

Tan, Jingjing & Ren, Dong, 2006, New fossil Priacmini (Insecta: Coleoptera: Archostemata: Cupedidae) from the Jehol Biota of China, Journal of Natural History 40 (47 - 48), pp. 2653-2661 : 2657-2658

Furcicupes gen. nov.

Type species: Furcicupes raucus sp. nov.

Diagnosis

Body elongated, subcylindrical, head with two pairs of obvious tubercles, antennae filiform, reaching beyond the base of prothorax, scape thicker than others, pedicel slightly shorter than other antennomeres, pronotum rectangle, anterior angles of prosternum bifid, prosternum without tarsal groove, disc without elevations, prosternal process only shallowly extending behind coxae; elytra with eight rows of cells; tarsi with five segments, first and last segments of foreleg equal in length, both of them longer than other tarsomeres, two to four tarsomeres short, equal in length; abdomen with five ventrites, last visible ventrite as long as or longer than first one, last visible ventrite two times longer than preceding one.

Remarks

This new genus displays several unique features among the tribe Cupedini and Priacmini , but the length of antennae and antennal insertions allows us to confidently refer it to the tribe Priacmini . The addition of Furcicupes brings the total number of genera in the tribe to four (other genera are Cupidium Ponomarenko, 1968 , Priacmopsis Ponomarenko, 1966 and one extant genus Priacma ( Leconte, 1874) ( Ponomarenko 1969) .

Although the new genus is assigned to the tribe Priacmini by the following characters: antennae less than half as long as entire insect, antennal insertions separated much greater than diameter of eyes and prosternal process only shallowly extending behind coxae, it clearly differs from other members of the tribe in anterior angles of the prosternum bifid and elytra with eight rows of cells.

Based on the fossil described below, the new genus includes one new species is established.

C