Broscosoma valainisi, Barševskis, 2010

Barševskis, Arvīds, 2010, New species of Broscosoma Rosenhauer, 1846 (Coleoptera: Carabidae) from China, Baltic Journal of Coleopterology 10 (1), pp. 19-22 : 20-21

Broscosoma valainisi sp. n.

Holotype. Female. China: Shanxi, Tschingling Mts. Taibeichan Nat. Res., 33 o 53’N 107 o 49’E, 2000 m, 10.08.2005., V. Patrikeev leg.

Type locality. China, Shanxi. This is the first species of the genus Broscosoma Rosenhauer that has been found in Shanxi Province in China.

Description. Female. The body is slender, convex, dark brown. Its surface is dark, plain but with bronze metallic lustre. Its length is 8.11 mm. The length of elytra is 4.02 mm, but their maximum width is 2.69 mm. The length of its thorax is 2.19 mm, but its maximum width is 1.64 mm.

The beetle’s head is pointed, with visibly convex surface, dark, lustrous, its front side is russet-brown. Its mouth organs and antennae are russet-brown, the antennae are a little lighter in colour. Its eyes, similar to most of the species of this genus, are small and not projecting outward. The frontal grooves irregular and deep, in the back side they are placed distantly from each other towards the eyes.

The thorax is extended, the correlation between its length and width is 1.3. It is noticeably contracted in the main part and forms a neck-like joint before the elytra. Its upper part is curved, smooth and lustrous. On the thorax disk there is a centre line that is a little impressed in its front part.

The legs are dichromatic and lustrous. The femora are dark-brown or black, but in the bottom and top parts they are lighter, i.e., they are brown with russet-brown tarsus.

The elytra are noticeably egg-shaped with widely rounded shoulders. They are black or dark-brown, a little lighter in the top part. The surface is smooth, without micro-sculpture, it has bronze sheen. The beetle has well defined punctate. The with bronze lustre. It differs from B. stefani Sciaky & Facchini in its colouring and more extended and slender body. The body colouring of B. stefani Sciaky & Facchini is black, with greenish or bluish hue, head with collar constriction deep and punctate, but the new species have dark brown body with bronze lustre. The elytra are more extended than those of B. stefani Sciaky & Facchini , too. The species have different areas of distribution as well: B. sichuanum Deuve and B. stefani Sciaky & Facchini are to be found in Sichuan Province in China, but the new species so far is known only from Shanxi province. Most of the species found in Eastern Asia are distributed in small areas, the only exception being B. sichuanum Deuve , which has recently been discovered in a larger territory in Sichuan Province in China.

Etymology. This species is named after my colleague and disciple Uldis Valainis (Institute of Systematic Biology, Daugavpils University, Daugavpils, Latvia) who, having studied the ground beetles of the genus Omophron Latr. , has greatly contributed to the development of carabidology. The name of the species has been coined on the basis of his surname “Valainis” – valainisi .

first punctate line is impressed in and markedly punctate and it reaches the apex of the elytra. The rest of the punctate lines are smoothed down. The correlation index of the elytra length and width is 1.49.

The male is not known.

Comparison. This species is very similar to B. sichuanum Deuve, 1990 and B. stefani Sciaky & Facchini, 2005 . It differs from the former one with the different colouring and more slender and extended habitus. The colour of B. sichuanum Deuve is green or bluish green, head with collar constriction impunctate or sparsely punctate, but the colouring of B. valainisi sp.n. is black-brown