Lamellothyrea descarpentriesi Krikken, 1980

Perissinotto, Renzo, 2017, Description of a new species of Lamellothyrea Krikken (Coleoptera, Scarabaeidae, Cetoniinae) from the iSimangaliso Wetland Park, KwaZulu-Natal (South Africa), ZooKeys 688, pp. 35-48 : 35

Lamellothyrea descarpentriesi Krikken, 1980

Lamellothyrea descarpentriesi Krikken, 1980: 185-187; Holm and Marais 1992: 126-127; Rigout and Allard 1992: 85, 92; Sakai and Nagai 1998: 332, 395.

Known material.

Holotype (♂): Transvaal (RMNH). Other material: 1♂, Mozambique, Marracuene 10 m, 50 km N of Maputo, S25°46'14", E32°40'11", 23-26 Aug 2001, AK Brinkman leg (BMPC); 1♀: Mozambique, Praia Do Bilene (25°28'63"S, 33°25'71"E) 27 Oct 2015, found dead on the beach, Andrew Deacon (https://www.ispotnature.org/node/747181, accessed on 25 May 2016).

Description of female.

While a detailed description of the holotype male of this species, complete with quality drawings, is provided in Krikken (1980), the female has remained unknown until the recent posting of a photo of a specimen by A. Deacon on the iSpot site. The specimen was found freshly dead on the beach of Praia do Bilene and the photo is of sufficiently high resolution to ascertain that it belongs to this sex and to recognise its key characters. On the basis of this, the female is essentially identical to the male in general appearance (Figs 1A, 2A), with the exception that it exhibits convex abdominal sternites without the medial vertical groove, which is typical of the male. The protibiae are also significantly broader anteriorly than in the male, and visibly tridentate.