Elwoodius, 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 : 326

Elwoodius gen. nov.

Type species. Elwoodius barbatus sp. nov., by present designation.

Description. Body small, very elongate, rather strongly punctured, cuticle of head and pronotum alutaceous, that of elytra and underside quite shining. Vestiture of head, pronotum and elytra of rather sparse suberect capitate scales. Head elongate, not separated from rostrum by groove and not sulcate posteriorly to eyes. Eyes quite small, hemisphaerical and strongly protruding, temples much longer than diameter of eye and moderately conically narrowing towards eyes. Rostrum thick, curved, moderately elongate, slightly dilated at antennal insertion, and almost continuing outline of head in lateral view. Antennae elongate and inserted at middle of rostrum, scape hardly sinuous and rather moderately widening towards apex, funicle heptamerous, antennomere I little thicker than others which are short, antennomeres III- VII transverse, club shortly fusiform. Pronotum elongate, moderately constricted towards apex, apical margin a little convex, base truncate. Scutellum small. Elytra very elongate and subparallel sided, shoulders absent. Striae formed by deep punctures, intervals little convex. Femora clubbed, edentate, slightly curved and emarginate at apical third of inner margin. Tibiae quite short and moderately thick, apical uncus rather strong. Tarsi narrow, tarsomere III hardly bilobed, claws free. Procoxae widely separated and closer to posterior than to anterior margin of prosternum, meso- and metacoxae separated by an interval clearly wider than their diameter. Metaventrite truncate frontward. Abdominal ventrites I and II elongate, suture between them straight, ventrites III and IV very short, their combined length about half of that of ventrite II, ventrite V rather elongate and crescent-shaped.

Differential diagnosis. Also this genus can be considered somewhat similar only to Dryotribus among Dryotribini . To this tribe quite different-looking genera are currently assigned, the aspect of some of them approaches also some members of the Proecini .Among the five genera of Dryotribini with heptamerous funicle and elongate body, Elwoodius gen. nov. is readily isolated by its small size, erect scales, protruding eyes, head not separated from rostrum by any sulcus, not protruding humeri, and very elongate parallel sided elytra. Erect scales are present also in the Palaearctic Cotaster Motschulsky, 1851 , but members of this genus are larger (2.0– 2.5 mm), have shorter navicular elytra with alutaceous surface, eyes moderately protruding and temples hardly longer than the diameter of an eye ( Fig. 21 ). Note that the South African Caenocotaster Voss, 1971 , described as subgenus of Cotaster ( VOSS 1971a) , is surely a self-standing genus (stat. nov.) on account of its 6-segmented funicle, rostrum only twice as long as wide, greyish vestiture of the dorsal surface, and short instead of long elytral hair-like scales. Elwoodius gen. nov. can be separated from Dryotribodes already by the intercoxal process of all coxae much wider than diameter of a coxa, the elongate temples in association with the not elevated elytral intervals III and V, and the smaller size (1.8 mm instead of 2.4–3.0 mm). The other Socotran dryotribine genera, Hajekia gen. nov. and Bezdekiellus gen. nov., have a quite different body shape and the antennae inserted near the apex of rostrum ( Figs 16–18 ).

Etymology. The genus name is given in memory of the late American entomologist Elwood Curtin Zimmerman, who published several papers and books of paramount importance to our knowledge of weevils. Gender is masculine.

Figures

Figs 16–21. 16–17, 19 – Hajekia microps sp. nov., holotype 16 – habitus; 17– habitus in side view; 19 – aedeagus in dorsal view. 18 – Hajekia parvopunctata sp. nov., holotype. habitus. 20 – Dryotribus mimeticus (Horn, 1873), habitus of a specimen from Japan, picture available on http://kogane.wem.sfc.keio.ac.jp accessed December 27, 2011. 21 – Cotaster cuneipennis (Aubé, 1850), habitus of a specimen from France, picture by Claude Schott from www.claude. schott.free.fr accessed December 27, 2011.