Coelophora circumvelata (Hope)

(Fig. 72)

Coccinella cincta Hope, 1831: 31 (preoccupied) (Lectotype, HEC, OMNH; Type locality: Nepal).—Booth & Pope 1989: 350 (lectotype designation).

Lemnia cincta: Crotch 1874: 149 .

Lemnia circumvelata Mulsant, 1850; 387, 388 (replacement name); 1866: 255; Korschefsky 1932: 291; Iablokoff-Khnzorian 1982: 220; Ren et al. 2009: 206.

Lemnia (Phrynocaria) circumvelata: Iablokoff-Khnzorian 1984: 210 .

Coelophora circumvelata: Booth & Pope 1989: 350; Poorani 2002a: 328; Kovář 2007: 614.

Diagnosis. Length: 6.00– 6.50 mm. Form almost circular, dorsum convex and glabrous. Head yellow, eyes large, narrowly separated and apically strongly divergent; pronotum yellow with a large black macula occupying most of the disc; scutellar shield black; elytra yellow, lateral margins with a black border, about 1/4th of width of elytron (Fig. 72a–c). Ventral side more or less yellowish except metaventrite and abdominal ventrite 1 medially darker. Female genitalia (Fig. 72f) and spermatheca (Fig. 72h) as illustrated. Rarely dorsum fully melanic (Fig. 72d, e) except inner ocular margins of head and anterolateral areas of pronotum yellowish, with similar genitalia (Fig. 72g).

Distribution. India: Northeastern region (Assam, Meghalaya); Nepal; The Philippines.

Notes. Coelophora circumvelata is of uncertain generic status and Poorani et al. (2021) opined that it could be a synonym of P. unicolor because it is similar to var. cinctipennis Weise, 1892 of P. unicolor . Booth & Pope (1989) designated a lectotype for C. circumvelata and Hope’s type specimen of C. circumvelata (Fig. 72a, BMNH, examined) looks like a Phrynocaria but could not be dissected. Similar variants of P. unicolor from eastern India have been examined. There is also a rare variant of P. circumusta with black lateral borders of elytra as in C. circumvelata . It is included here in Coelophora following Booth & Pope (1989) and the male genitalia illustrated by Ren et al. (2009) also appear to be characteristic of Coelophora, with the penis composed of two distinct sclerites. A female closely matching C. circumvelata (Fig. 72a–c) and an almost fully melanic variant conspecific with this (Fig. 72d, e) were examined from Assam, north-eastern India and both are illustrated here. Their genitalia also were almost identical (Fig. 72f, g). See Booth & Pope (1989) for notes on its nomenclature.