Hagherius, Colonnelli, 2014

Colonnelli, Enzo, 2014, Apionidae, Nanophyidae, Brachyceridae and Curculionidae except Scolytinae (Coleoptera) from Socotra Island, Acta Entomologica Musei Nationalis Pragae 54, pp. 295-422 : 414

Hagherius gen. nov.

Type species. Hagherius sculptus sp. nov., by present designation.

Description. Body rather small, quite plump, devoid of scales but with rather sparse setae, cuticle shining, pronotum strongly punctured, elytra with deep sulciform striae. Flightless. Funiculus with seven antennomeres. Eyes dorsal, almost flat and subcontiguous in middle. Femora dentate, profemora slightly larger than meso- and metafemora. Tibiae with rather strong apical uncus. Claws simple. Prosternum with no trace of rostral channel, procoxae almost contiguous, base of prosternum moderately bulging in middle: mesocoxae separated by distance slightly less than their diameter, metacoxae small and separated by twice their diameter. Prosternum, meso- and metaventrite very strongly punctured, punctures on abdominal ventrites dense and deep but half as large as sternal ones. Ventrites I and II of about same length laterally, both slightly longer than combined length of III+IV, ventrite V crescent-shaped and as long as III+IV, sutures between ventrites slightly arched with convexity backwards. In male ventrites I and II flat.

Differential diagnosis. A very isolated genus difficult to place in any of the currently recognised tribes, although it appears somewhat more related with Menemachini than with any other Conoderinae . Shining body devoid of scales and only bearing thin setae already makes Hagherius gen. nov. immediately recognisable not only from the hitherto described Menemachini , but also from all Conoderinae . Other peculiar characters of this new genus are strongly coarsely punctured pronotum and deeply sulcate elytra with flat intervals in addition with finely acutely dentate femora and uncinate tibiae, features which make Hagherius gen. nov. unmistakable. Other Menemachini , almost all African except a few distributed in southeast Asia, Japan and Australia (ALONSO- ZARAZAGA & LYAL 1999), have always at least some patches of scales on pronotum and elytra and cannot be confused with this new genus. On the other hand, and considering the unclear tribal taxonomy of this subfamily ( PRENA et al. 2014), there is no genus of Conoderinae which can be considered even similar to Hagherius gen. nov. which probably evolved in Socotra from a very ancient settlement by its ancestors.

Etymology. The genus takes its name from the Hagher Mountains where its single member was collected. Gender is masculine.