Dryocoetiops inopinatus (Schedl)

Beaver, Roger A., Smith, Sarah M. & Sanguansub, Sunisa, 2019, A review of the genus Dryocoetiops Schedl, with new species, new synonymy and a key to species (Coleoptera: Curculionidae: Scolytinae), Zootaxa 4712 (2), pp. 236-250 : 243

Dryocoetiops inopinatus (Schedl)

Dryocoetes inopinatus Schedl 1955: 294 .

Dryocoetiops inopinatus (Schedl) : Schedl 1964: 308.

Taxonomy. We have examined the holotype (NMW) from New Guinea. No further specimens have been recorded. Schedl’s collection (NMW) contains a second specimen from New Guinea labeled both as a paratype of D. inopinatus and as a paratype of D. nitidus! It appears that Schedl first considered this specimen as part of the type series of D. nitidus which was described earlier, but later changed his mind and considered it to belong to D. inopinatus . However, because the original description of D. nitidus mentions only a single ‘Type’, the specimen has no validity as a paratype of D. inopinatus . In our opinion, the second specimen is a normal (although damaged) specimen of D. nitidus (Schedl) , and it does not have the distinctive characters of D. inopinatus described below.

The species is very similar to D. nitidus but the eyes are larger and more coarsely faceted, and the sculpture of the elytra differs. On the declivity, interstriae 1–4 are irregularly biseriately punctured, not strictly uniseriate. Each puncture bears a long fine seta, so that D. inopinatus has a much more setose appearance than D. nitidus when viewed from above. Striae and interstriae 2–3 are distinctly outwardly curved on the declivity, converging again towards the apex, not almost straight as in other species of Dryocoetiops . The granules on the declivital interstriae are minute, far smaller than in D. nitidus .

Distribution. New Guinea.

Biology. Unknown.