Eleodes (Promus) hepburni Champion, 1884

Triplehorn, Charles A., 2010, Notes on Three Species ofEleodesEschscholtz (Coleoptera: Tenebrionidae) and Description of a New Species, The Coleopterists Bulletin 64 (4), pp. 373-378 : 376

Eleodes (Promus) hepburni Champion, 1884 ( Figs. 3, 4 ; Map 2)

Eleodes hepburni Champion, 1884: 88 [misspelled

as Elaeodes ]. Eleodes compressitarsis Blaisdell, 1935: 158 .

New synonymy. Eleodes beameri Blaisdell, 1937: 132 . Eleodes bryanti Blaisdell, 1937: 134 . Eleodes palmerleensis Blaisdell, 1937: 136 .

Champion (1884) described E. hepburni from a single male specimen from Piños Altos, Chihuahua, Mexico. This location is a mining town, 238 km west of the city of Chihuahua (Selander and Vaurie 1962). He indicated that the specimen is slightly deformed, and mentioned that it closely resembles Eleodes longicollis LeConte , a common and widespread species found in the same area. I studied the type specimen in the British Museum in 1980 and was unable to relate it to any species then known to me. Earlier (Triplehorn and Doyen 1972), it was determined that three species of Eleodes described by Blaisdell in 1937 from southeastern Arizona were conspecific, being separated solely on the condition of the setal pads on the plantar surfaces of the pro- and mesotarsi. It was pointed out that these pads were subject to wear or matting of the pads, and, as a result, two of the species ( E. bryanti and E. palmerleensis ) were placed in synonymy with E. beameri .

During my 1980 visit to the British Museum, I also studied the types of E. compressitarsis , described from Nevada de Colima, Mexico and collected by H. Gadau, September 1904 at 2,440 m (8,000 ft). I decided that it was conspecific with E. beameri , but never published the change. It is apparent that Blaisdell himself did not realize he had already described the same species, but from Arizona.

Over the past half century, I have studied almost 600 specimens of this species from widely scattered localities in the United States and Mexico, and it was only very recently that I realized that E. hepburni is actually the oldest available name for this assemblage. Champion’ s description is quite adequate and accurate and I am surprised that it took me so long to recognize this overlooked synonymy. Eleodes hepburni may easily be recognized by three somewhat variable characters which separate it from E. longicollis , which it does resemble. The fine setal pads of the pro- and mesotarsi (absent in E. longicollis ), the shape of the pronotum, and the emargination near the distal end of the profemur, are especially developed in the male (femur is unmodified in E. longicollis ).

This species is recorded from Cochise, Gila, Graham, and Pima Counties, Arizona, and Hidalgo County, New Mexico in the United States. It is especially common at high altitudes (above 2,134 m) in the Chiricahua Mountains of Cochise County, and in the vicinity of El Salto, Durango, Mexico. In Mexico, it occurs in Chihuahua, Coahuila, Sonora, Sinaloa, and Durango. Specimens have been collected from May to September .

Figures

Figs. 1–12. Eleodes spp., habiti. 1) E. anachronus, female; 2) E. anachronus, male; 3) E. hepburni, female; 4) E. hepburni, male; 5) E. spinipes spinipes, female; 6) E. spinipes spinipes, male; 7) E. spinipes ventricosus, female; 8) E. spinipes ventricosus, male; 9) E. spinipes macrurus, female; 10) E. spinipes macrurus, male; 11) E. arcuatus, female; 12) E. arcuatus, male.