Protoconnus fenestratus, Jałoszyński, 2020

Jałoszyński, Paweł, 2020, Three new species of the Neotropical genus Protoconnus Franz (Coleoptera Staphylinidae: Scydmaeninae), Zootaxa 4809 (2), pp. 383-389 : 384-386

Protoconnus fenestratus sp. n.

( Figs 1 , 4–7)

Type material. Holotype: PERU (Madre de Dios Dept.): ♂, two labels: “ PEROU - 9.XI.78 / Lago Valencia / s/Madre de Dios / A. de Chambrier ” [white, printed], “ PROTOCONNUS / fenestratus m. / HOLOTYPUS, P. JAŁOSZYŃSKI, 2020” [red, printed] ( MHNG).

Diagnosis. BL 0.80 mm; body stout, elytra 1.6 times as broad as strongly transverse pronotum; frons in male about as broad as width of eye in dorsal view, with narrow longitudinal groove between supraantennal tubercles; vertex unmodified, convex and with posterior margin rounded; pronotal base with indistinct pits connected by sharply marked transverse groove; lateral pronotal carinae distinct in posterior third; humeral carinae weakly marked, rounded; aedeagus in ventral view with basal capsule strongly narrowing distad, distal region rapidly narrowed and broad, nearly parallel-sided except for broadly triangular apex, with oval translucent subapical ‘window’; parameres slender, rapidly broadened at apices.

Description. Body of male ( Fig. 1 ) strongly convex, uniformly brown, covered with setae distinctly lighter than cuticle; BL 0.80 mm.

Head broadest at conspicuously large, strongly convex and coarsely faceted eyes, HL 0.13 mm, HW 0.20 mm; tempora vestigial; vertex weakly convex, posterior margin rounded; frons between large supraantennal tubercles reduced to a sharply marked, narrow longitudinal groove extending toward clypeus. Punctures on vertex inconspicuous, but surface slightly uneven; setae short, sparse and suberect. Antennae slender, AnL 0.35 mm, less than half as long as body, club relatively indistinctly delimited; antennomeres I and II each slightly less than twice as long as broad; III–X each distinctly transverse, XI much longer than X, about 1.6 × as long as broad.

Pronotum distinctly transverse, subtrapezoidal, broadest shortly in front of base; PL 0.20 mm, PW 0.26 mm. Anterior and posterior margins weakly convex, lateral margins strongly rounded; lateral carinae distinct in posterior third; transverse antebasal groove distinct, connecting five shallow and diffuse pits. Punctures on pronotal disc inconspicuous; setae sparse, short, suberect.

Elytra much more convex than pronotum, together oval, broadest in front of middle; EL 0.48 mm, EW 0.43 mm, EI 1.12; humeral carinae developed as elongate and rounded protuberances. Punctures and setae similar to those on pronotum.

Legs moderately long and slender, unmodified.

Aedeagus (Figs 4–7) relatively stout; AeL 0.18 mm; in ventral view basal capsule stout and much longer than distal region, strongly narrowed distad; distal region laterally delimited from sides of basal capsule by a rapid narrowing, broad and nearly parallel-sided, with apex broadly subtriangular and rounded at middle, apical region with large, translucent and transversely oval ‘window’, in lateral view distal region strongly recurved; area above parameral base forming small rounded projection near distal margin of capsular portion of aedeagus; parameres with apical portions strongly broadened, suboval, each with two apical setae of equal length.

Female unknown.

Distribution. Southeast Peru, east of the Andes ( Fig. 16 ).

Etymology. The adjective fenestratus refers to the translucent ‘window’ (Latin fenestra) in the subapical region of the aedeagus.

Remarks. The male of this remarkable species has conspicuously huge eyes and prominent supraantennal tubercles separated at middle by a deep, narrow, longitudinal groove; these characters distinguish P. fenestratus from all its congeners. Additionally, the aedeagus of P. fenestratus , unlike those of most species of Protoconnus , is not strongly narrowing distad, but has its apical portion broadly subtriangular, with rounded apex. Only two species of Protoconnus have similarly stout distal portions of the aedeagus: P. volcanbaru Jałoszyński, 2018 and P. inexpectatus Jałoszyński, 2018 . Both have clearly different shapes of the median lobes and parameres, and both externally strongly differ from P. fenestratus (among other characters, P. volcanbaru and P. inexpectatus have the pronota as long as broad, and not distinctly transverse, as that in P. fenestratus ).

FIGURES 4–15. Aedeagus in ventral (4, 6, 8, 10, 12, 14) and lateral (5, 7, 9, 11, 13, 15) views. Protoconnus fenestratus sp. n. (4–7), P. brachati sp. n. (8–11), and P. carabobonus sp. n. (12–15).

Figures

FIGURE 16. Distribution of nominal Protoconnus species.

FIGURES 1–3. Dorsal habitus of Protoconnus fenestratus sp. n. (1), P. brachati sp. n. (2), and P. carabobonus sp. n. (3).