Liatongus affinis (Arrow, 1908)

Sarkar, Subhankar Kumar & Kharel, Bhim Prasad, 2020, A first faunistic study on the tribe Oniticellini Kolbe, 1905 (Coleoptera: Scarabaeidae) of Baikunthapur Tropical Forest of the Himalayan foothills, West Bengal, India, Biodiversity Data Journal 8, pp. 57444-57444 : 57444

Liatongus affinis (Arrow, 1908)

Materials

Type status: Other material. Occurrence: recordedBy: Subhankar Kumar Sarkar; sex: 1 male; Location: country: India; countryCode: IND; stateProvince: West Bengal; municipality: Jalpaiguri; locality: Ambari range of Baikunthapur Forest ; verbatimCoordinates: 26°41'3.21"N, 88°34'46.86"E; Event: samplingProtocol: Pitfall trap; eventDate: 19-Aug-18; habitat: Mammalian dung; Record Level: collectionCode: ZE-KU_BKF01; basisOfRecord: Preserved Specimen Type status: Other material. Occurrence: recordedBy: Subhankar Kumar Sarkar and Bhim Prasad Kharel; sex: 2 males; Location: country: India; countryCode: IND; stateProvince: West Bengal; municipality: Jalpaiguri; locality: Apalchand range of Baikunthapur Forest ; verbatimCoordinates: 26°46'41.98"N, 88°37'26.35"E; Event: samplingProtocol: Hand picking from dung pats; eventDate: 03-Mar-19; habitat: Mammalian dung; Record Level: collectionCode: ZE-KU_BKF02, ZE-KU_BKF03; basisOfRecord: Preserved Specimen Type status: Other material. Occurrence: recordedBy: Subhankar Kumar Sarkar and Bhim Prasad Kharel; sex: 2 males; Location: country: India; countryCode: IND; stateProvince: West Bengal; municipality: Jalpaiguri; locality: Dabgram range of Baikunthapur Forest ; verbatimCoordinates: 26°40'46.84"N, 88°29'47.24"E; Event: samplingProtocol: Hand picking from dung pats; eventDate: 05-Jan-20; habitat: Mammalian dung; Record Level: collectionCode: ZE-KU_BKF04, ZE-KU_BKF05; basisOfRecord: Preserved Specimen

Ecological interactions

Feeds on

Mammalian dung

Distribution

CHINA; INDIA: Assam, Karnataka, Manipur, Tripura, West Bengal; MYANMAR; THAILAND ( Chatterjee and Biswas 2000, Karimbumkara and Priyadarsanan 2013, Schoolmeesters 2020).

Diagnosis

This species can be distinguished from other Liatongus species by the following combination of characters (Fig. 2 a): Length 7 mm, breadth 4 mm; upper surface dark and moderately shining; head bears a broad transverse carina on the vertex with its angles forming a pair of sharp pointed divergent processes; clypeus bilobed at front and nearly straight at sides, moderately punctured and bears a curved carina posteriorly; pronotum dark brown on the disc, laterally testaceous, strongly and closely punctured, with a mid-longitudinal groove near the base and a slight vertical declivity in the middle anteriorly; elytra deeply striate, irregularly punctured, intervals slightly convex; metasternal shield finely punctured, mid-longitudinally grooved; pygidium coarsely punctured, surface coriaceous. Genitalia: Phallobase elongate, broad at base, heavily sclerotised (Fig. 3 a); parameres broad, ventrally curved with the apex extended into a hook-like process (Fig. 3 b).