Afrothymapion maculiferum, 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 : 301-302

Afrothymapion maculiferum sp. nov.

( Figs 1–5 )

Type material. HOLOTYPE: J ( NMPC),‘ Yemen, Socotra Isl., // Dgisfu valley , 2.vi.2010 // N 12°28,444′, E 054°08,596′ // V. Hula & J. Niedobová leg. ’. PARATYPES: 1 ♀, same label data as holotype ( NMPC) ; 2 ♀♀, ‘ Yemen, Socotra Isl. , Homhil (= Hamaderon) // GPS 12.587 N, 54.302 E, 330 m, // 20-21.xi.2000 // V. Bejček & K. Šťastný’ ( NMPC) ; 1J, ‘ Yemen, Socotra Island, // Qalentiah env., 4-5.vi.2010, // slopes 5 km SE from Qaysoh, // 12°39,691′N, 53°26,658′E, // V. Hula & J. Niedobová leg.’ ( ECRI) ; 2 JJ, ‘ Yemen, Socotra island // Kazazhan area // shrubland on limestone ; sifting // 10.vi.2012 // 12°33.8′N, 54°19.8′E, 540 m’, ‘ Socotra expedition 2012 // J. Bezděk, J. Hájek, V. Hula, // P. Kment, I. Malenovský, // J. Niedobová & L. Purchart leg.’ (1 NMPC, 1 ECRI) .

Description. Male holotype. Body length 2.3 mm. Pitchy-brown, rather shining, moderately coarsely punctured.Antennae, femora and tibiae dark ferruginous. Dorsal vestiture of moderately dense ochreous and brownish recumbent elongate scales, brownish ones more slender and forming four vague patches on pronotum and transverse median dark stripe on elytral intervals I to IV. Ventral side clothed with rather dense pale yellowish recumbent quite elongate scales which become hair-like toward middle of urosternites, particularly urosternite V ( Figs 1–2 ).

Head. Rostrum as long as pronotum, slightly curved, somewhat strigose up to very near its apex, moderately widening above antennal insertion and faintly tapering towards apex. Antenna inserted in basal quarter of rostrum; scape moderately clubbed and as long as funicular antennomeres II+III; antennomere I of funiculus thicker than following ones and slightly longer than antennomere III; antennomeres III to VII progressively shorter, last clearly transverse; club large, shortly fusiform, about as long as antennomeres IV–VII. Space between eyes slightly convex, punctured and about as wide as half of rostral width; eyes large and slightly protruding from head convexity, surrounded by row of whitish hair-like scales.

Pronotum subtrapezoidal, about as long as wide, faintly constricted at apex, base slightly bisinuous, disc rather convex, coarsely punctured; scales pointing forward and leaving narrow bare median line, and with elongate pit in front of scutellum. Scutellum subtriangularly elongate, its base with very faint minute tubercles.

Elytra 1.28 times longer than wide, convex and with scutellar faint depression, maximum width at apical third; sides weakly curved at basal 2/3, then quite strongly jointly curved towards apex; humeri rather strong. Striae with elongate and catenulate punctures, bare. Interstriae slightly wider than striae, flat, moderately punctured.

Legs fairly elongate, femora clubbed, tibiae slightly curved at extreme base, then almost straight and moderately widening towards apex, not mucronate, tarsi relatively stout, claws minutely dentate at base.

Ventral side. Ventrites I and II convex and of about the same width at sides, ventrite II about as long as ventrites III+IV combined, ventrite V subtriangular with rounded apex ( Fig. 3 ).

Male genitalia. Aedeagus as depicted in Figs 4–5 .

Variability. Females differ by their rostrum 1.50 times as long as pronotum with antennae inserted about at basal third. Pale scales of some specimens are subtriangular instead of narrowly elongate and pronotal spots may be not present, whereas elytral markings are always visible, although more or less developed.

Body length 2.3–2.5 mm.

Differential diagnosis. Afrothymapion maculiferum sp. nov. is immediately recognisable from other species of the genus by its brown elytral markings and more or less dark ferruginous femora and tibiae. All other Afrothymapion have rather uniform vestiture and usually piceous body, although the integument of e.g. A. tanganum (Hartmann, 1897) , occurring in the Arabian Peninsula ( WANAT 1990a), can sometimes be testaceous even in mature specimens. Specimens cited by PERRIN (2000: 425) as Apion sp. almost certainly belong to Afrothymapion maculiferum sp. nov.

Etymology. The species name is Latin adjective maculifer (- a, - um) meaning ‘with a spot, bearing a spot’ and was chosen in reference to the elytral markings of the new species.

Distribution. Endemic to Socotra Island.

Comments to classification. After the papers by VOSS (1955a, 1959a,b, 1961, 1965, 1966a,b) aiming to a better arrangement of the diverse members of this family particularly from Africa, the key revisionary study by ALONSO- ZARAZAGA (1990) of the Palaearctic Apionidae gave great importance to the hitherto neglected male pygidial and aedeagal features for distinguishing tribes and genera. Despite some criticism by other authors (e.g. EHRET 1997, GØNGET 1997, COLONNELLI 2003) against the excessive fragmentation into several genera and subgenera of clearly intimately related taxa, a division moreover based on the study of only a relatively small number of the world species, most subsequent authors (e.g. KOROTYAEV 1985, 1987, 1992; WANAT 1990a,b; KISSINGER 2002, 2005) have primarily used the same male characters to describe additional taxa, often when merely dealing with regional faunas. This has resulted in the taxonomy of both African and Oriental Apionidae , not to mention the Australian and American ones, remaining inadequately understood, and in the difficulty of placing the described and the much more numerous undescribed species in the proper genus. Aedeagal characters alone do not in my opinion allow the establishment of genera, and evidence for this view is that Wanat, who published a contribution on the fauna of the Arabian Peninsula ( WANAT 1990a), was unable to assign to genus the three females from Socotra reared from Abutilon sp. (Malvaceae) and cited by PERRIN (2000). The new species is assigned with some confidence to Afrothymapion Wanat, 1990 , of which it has the main features.

Figures

Figs 1–5. Afrothymapion maculiferum sp. nov., holotype. 1 – habitus; 2– habitus in side view; 3 – abdomen; 4 – aedeagus in dorsal view; 5 – aedeagus in side view.