Hoplasoma Jacoby, 1884

Bezděk, Jan, 2008, A review of the genus Hoplasoma (Coleoptera: Chrysomelidae: Galerucinae) from Sulawesi, Indonesia, with the description of H. bosi sp. nov., Zootaxa 1941 (1), pp. 55-66 : 57-58

Genus Hoplasoma Jacoby, 1884

Hoplasoma Jacoby, 1884: 233 (original description), neutrum.

Type species: Hoplasoma apicalis Jacoby, 1884 (by original designation)

Description. Body oblong, narrow, parallel-sided. Dorsum usually yellow to orange (rarely with black markings), abdomen, mesosternum and metasternum yellow, partly black or completely black.

Head shining, narrower than prothorax at the base. Clypeus triangular, usually raised. Labrum transverse, with apex slightly emarginate, often covered with long hairs. Maxillary palpus four-segmented, basal segment short, second club-shaped, third much thickened, fourth small and conical. Antennae long and slender, usually about half or three quarters of the body, but in some cases longer, the second segment shortest. Eyes generally large and strongly convex. Vertex convex, smooth.

Prothorax shining, quadrate or slightly broader than long, always narrower than the base of elytra, with a shallow transverse depression in front of the basal line, area in front of this depression generally convex. Sides bordered, somewhat oblique, sometimes strongly convex in front, with a consequent constriction at the middle. Each of the corners with a pore bearing fine seta. The anterior and posterior margins straight. Scutellum subtriangular.

Elytra usually shining (or shining in males and opaque in females), with surface smooth and finely con- fusedly punctate. In some species with a slight constriction about the middle and along the side with a ridge. Humerus prominent and convex. Epipleura narrow from the base to apex.

Legs long and slender, apices of tibiae without a spine. The first segment of hind tarsus slender to extended. Claws bifid.

Male abdomen simple or with one pair of processions from the posterior margin of the second ventrite (rarely with two pairs of processions from the first and the second ventrites or from the second and third ventrites). The last male ventrite of some species (including all species from Sulawesi) with well defined subquadrate area.

Distribution. Oriental Region (from Pakistan to Philippines), southern China. Recorded also from New Guinea, but both species distributed there will be transferred to other genera in the near future.

Comments. Jacoby (1884) did not explain the origin of the genus name Hoplasoma or its gender in the original description. Within the years 1884-1904 he described eight species in this genus, all treated as masculine with termination „- is “. It seems to be evident that the name Hoplasoma is derived from Greek words „hoplon“ (óπλον, neutrum, used in plural: hopla) and „sóma“ (σώµα, neutrum) meaning „armed body“, refering to two pairs of appendages on the first and second ventrites in the male of H. apicale (type species). Although Jacoby strictly used masculine terminations for all his species described in Hoplasoma , the gender had to be fixed as neutrum, as was used by Kimoto (1989, 2003).