Pucaya pulchra Arrow, 1911

Paucar-Cabrera, Aura & Moore, Matthew Robert, 2018, New tribal placement and review of Parapucaya Prell and Pucaya Ohaus (Coleoptera, Scarabaeidae, Dynastinae), ZooKeys 805, pp. 127-158 : 145-146

Pucaya pulchra Arrow, 1911 Figs 6, 35, 39, 40

Pucaya pulchra Arrow, 1911: 167 (original combination).

Redescription.

Length 20.4-23.7 mm; width 9.8-11.2 mm. Color of head black or piceous. Pronotum completely black or black with brown, elongate markings on margins, with or without brown spots on base of disc. Elytra entirely black or black with brown margins or brown with black markings on the suture, humerus and behind scutellum; markings can be short near elytral base or extend to umbone area. Scutellum, pygidium, venter, and legs black or brown. Head: Frons sparsely punctate at base, becoming progressively rugo-punctate anteriorly; punctures moderate in size. Frontoclypeal sutural area at sides with tubercle in both sexes; tubercle smaller in females, conical in males. Clypeus with apex very broadly truncate, reflexed, surface rugose at disc, smooth to shagreened at margins. Interocular width equals 4.1-4.3 transverse eye diameters. Antenna with 10 antennomeres, club slightly longer than antennomeres 2-7. Pronotum: Surface moderately to densely punctate at base, punctures moderate in size; sparsely punctate from disc to apex, punctures minute. Broadly depressed midline, with round depressions on each side of midline: 1 on apex, 2 between mid-disc and margins; depressions shallow in females. Elytra: Surface from base to 2/3 striate-punctate; punctures dense, moderate in size, ocellate; from 2/3 to apex with sparse, minute punctures. Pygidium: Surface densely punctate, punctures moderate in size. In lateral view, males with surface evenly rounded, females with surface nearly flat. Legs: Protibia tridentate. Protarsus in male weakly enlarged, median claw large, strongly curved, cleft at apex; protarsus and claw simple in female. Venter: Prosternal process moderately long, columnar; apex densely setose, flattened, and with large, raised, round “button” covering most of apex; setae long, tawny. Parameres: Fig. 40.

Distribution.

Pucaya pulchra occurs in Colombia and Ecuador ( Endrődi 1985; López-García et al. 2015). In Ecuador, adults were collected in five provinces: Esmeraldas, Loja, Napo, Pastaza, Pichincha, Santo Domingo de los Tsáchilas, Tungurahua, and Zamora Chinchipe.

Diagnosis.

Pucaya pulchra can be distinguished from P. castanea by the elytral punctation. In P. pulchra , the elytral surface is striate-punctate from the base to 2/3 of the elytra; the punctures are dense, moderate in size, and ocellate, but the apical third has sparse, minute punctures. In P. castanea , the entire elytral surface has sparse, minute punctures. The form of the parameres (Fig. 40.) also separates both species.

Natural history.

In Ecuador, P. pulchra occurs at elevations ranging from 20 to 1,900 m in the coastal, Andean, and Amazon regions. Some specimens have been collected in pitfall traps.