Prionodrypta Jeannel, 1949

Sciaky, Riccardo & Anichtchenko, Alexander, 2020, Taxonomic notes on the tribe Dryptini Bonelli, 1810 with description of a new genus and species from China (Coleoptera: Carabidae: Dryptini), Zootaxa 4731 (4), pp. 522-530 : 524

Prionodrypta Jeannel, 1949

Type species: Drypta mandibularis Castelnau, 1897

This genus, very synthetically described by Jeannel (1949), is scarcely known, so that none of the few authors who have mentioned it has noticed its peculiar characters and its complete independence from the “true” Drypta , rather treating it as a simple subgenus of Drypta ( Lorenz, 2005) , or implicitly considering it a synonym of Drypta ( Baehr, 2003, 2017).

In our opinion it is a well distinguished genus, probably related to Nesiodrypta and forming with it and with Megadrypta , here described, a group of Gondwanian origin, The completely beaded sides of pronotum seem to us a more primitive character compared to the unbeaded sides of Drypta and Dendrocellus , indicating a more ancient group from which probably the other two genera have later evolved.

It contains 8 species from South-East Asia ( India, Myanmar, Indonesia, China, Laos), still inadequately known; a revision would be useful.

The unique combination of characters distinguishing this genus is: pronotal bead well marked, with margin serrate (fig. 11); punctuation on head sparse, often leaving the frons smooth, on pronotum dense and irregular, with the punctures often confluent; pronotum evidently constricted towards base; elytral microsculpture almost absent, intervals smooth; elytral pubescence only aligned along the striae; single scutellar pore; intervals rather convex; tarsal claws thick, strongly curved, smooth on inner side; no setae, or a rudimental one, on outer side of stylomere ( fig. 6 ).

Figures

FIGS. 4–8. Stylomere structure of: 4—Megadrypta mirabilis gen. n. sp. n.; 5—Nesiodrypta waterhousei (Oberthür, 1881); 6—Prionodrypta lugens (Schmidt-Goebel, 1846); 7—Drypta lineola W. S. MacLeay, 1825; 8—Dendrocellus australis (Peringuey, 1896).