Nephaspis indu s Gordon, 1996

Chen, Xiaosheng, Xie, Xiufeng, Ren, Shunxiang & Wang, Xingmin, 2016, Discovery of a New World ladybird beetle Nephaspisindus Gordon, 1996 (Coleoptera: Coccinellidae: Scymnini) on the Island of Taiwan, Biodiversity Data Journal 4, pp. 10537-10537 : 10537

Nephaspis indu s Gordon, 1996

Nephaspis indus Gordon, 1996: 43; Yu 2011: 88.

Nephaspis amnicola : Yoshida and Mau 1985 (nec. Wingo 1952)

Materials

Type status: Other material. Occurrence: catalogNumber: SCAU (E) 11661 ; recordedBy: Ren Shun-Xiang; individualCount: 8; sex: male; lifeStage: adult; Taxon: scientificName: Nephaspisindus; Location: island: Taiwan; locality: Zhiben, Taidong county ; verbatimElevation: 140 m; locationRemarks: label transliteration: "Taiwan, Taidong, Zhiben, 2012.08.20, Ren Shunxiang"; [台湾台东知本 140 m, 22°41.63'N 120°59.94'E, 2012.08.20, sweeping, 任顺祥]; verbatimCoordinates: 22°41.63'N 120°59.94'E; decimalLatitude: 22.6938; decimalLongitude: 120.999; georeferenceProtocol: label; Identification: identifiedBy: Xiaosheng Chen; dateIdentified: 2016; Event: samplingProtocol: sweeping; eventDate: 2012-8-20; Record Level: modified: 2016-05-13T10:24:32Z; language: en; collectionCode: Insects; basisOfRecord: PreservedSpecimen Type status: Other material. Occurrence: catalogNumber: SCAU (E) 11670 ; recordedBy: Ren Shun-Xiang; individualCount: 7; sex: female; lifeStage: adult; Taxon: scientificName: Nephaspisindus; Location: island: Taiwan; locality: Zhiben, Taidong county ; verbatimElevation: 140 m; locationRemarks: label transliteration: "Taiwan, Taidong, Zhiben, 2012.08.20, Ren Shunxiang"; [台湾台东知本 140 m, 22°41.63'N 120°59.94'E, 2012.08.21, sweeping, 任顺祥]; verbatimCoordinates: 22°41.63'N 120°59.94'E; decimalLatitude: 22.6938; decimalLongitude: 120.999; georeferenceProtocol: label; Identification: identifiedBy: Xiaosheng Chen; dateIdentified: 2016; Event: samplingProtocol: sweeping; eventDate: 2012-8-20; Record Level: modified: 2016-05-13T10:24:32Z; language: en; collectionCode: Insects; basisOfRecord: PreservedSpecimen

Description

TL: 1.23-1.32 mm, TW: 0.87-0.92mm, TH: 0.67-0.69mm, TL/TW: 1.41-1.43, PL/PW: 0.52-0.53, EL/EW: 1.05-1.07, HW/PW: 0.61-0.62, PW/EW: 0.84-0.85.

Body rounded oval, moderately convex, dorsum covered with white pubescence (Fig. 2 a–f). Head, antennae and mouthparts yellow in male (Fig. 2 a–c). Pronotum yellow with dark brown at central base. Scutellum black. Elytra black with apical 1/15 yellow. Prothoracic hypomeron and prosternum yellow. Mesoventrite and metaventrite reddish brown to black. Elytral epipleuron black. Legs yellow.

Head with fine frontal punctures, as large as eye facets, 0.5 diameter apart. Eyes densely faceted, interocular distance 0.44 times head width. Pronotal punctures smaller than those on frons, 1.0-1.5 diameters apart. Surface of elytra with punctures larger than those on pronotum, separated by 1.0-2.0 diameters. Prosternal process very short, transversely oval (Fig. 1b). Abdominal postcoxal lines strongly recurved and distinctly incomplete laterally (Fig. 2g), nearly reaching posterior margin of abdominal ventrite 1, area enclosed by lines coarsely punctate, broadly smooth along line. Abdominal ventrite 5 with apex truncate in both sexes.

Male genitalia. Penis long, strongly curved at basal 1/2 length (Fig. 2h); penis capsule with long inner arm and short outer arm; apex of penis with membranous appendage (Fig. 2i). Tegmen stout (Fig. 2 j–k) with penis guide widest at base, tapering gradually to pointed apex in ventral view (Fig. 2j) and its base with prominent dorsal keel in lateral view (Fig. 2k). Parameres tapering toward apex, as long as 2/3 length of penis guide, covered with several long setae at apices (Fig. 2k).

Female externally similar to male but with black pronotum (Fig. 2d) except anterolateral angles yellow (Fig. 2 e–f); head yellow with vertex dark brown (Fig. 2e).

Diagnosis

This species is similar to Nephaspis bicolor Gordon, 1982 in general appearance, but can be distinguished from the latter by details of male genitalia, particularly the stout penis guide with a dorsal keel at basal 1/3 length in lateral view (Fig. 2k) and the black pronotum with yellow anterolateral angles in female (Fig. 2e). In N. bicolor , the penis guide with a high dorsal keel at basal half in lateral view and the yellow pronotum with median 1/3 dark brown in female ( Gordon 1996).

Distribution

Taiwan, Hawaii, Trinidad, Honduras.

Notes

There was some confusion about the taxonomy and nomenclature of N. indus . This species was introduced from Honduras, Trinidad and the West Indies into Hawaii as N. amnicola in 1979-1980 where it became effective in biological control of the spiralling whitefly ( Kumashiro et al. 1983). A few years later, Gordon (1996) described a new species, N. indus , based on the specimens from Hawaii. Actually, this is a Trinidadian species, although the type series were all from Hawaii. He also pointed out that the male genitalia figured in Gordon (1982) for N. bicolor are those of N. indus , because a male of the latter species was mixed in with the type series of N. bicolor and that was the specimen selected for illustration ( Gordon 1996).