Eurymeloe Reitter, 1911

Sanchez-Vialas, Alberto, Ruiz, Jose L., Recuero, Ernesto, Gutierrez-Perez, Felipe & Garcia-Paris, Mario, 2022, A new systematic arrangement for the blister beetle genus Eurymeloe (Meloini, Meloidae, Coleoptera) with the description of a new species from Spain, ZooKeys 1109, pp. 17-48 : 17

Eurymeloe Reitter, 1911

Type species.

Meloe brevicollis Panzer, 1793 (by subsequent designation of Pinto and Selander, 1970).

Description (adult).

Size small or medium (6-30 mm), usually robust in appearance. Body integument colour black to moderately metallic blue, bright, silky, or with an oily shininess (Fig. 2I ). Body pubescence very short, recumbent, or absent on the head and pronotum. Head rounded, sides almost straight, convergent to the eyes. Eyes small, subreniform, weakly protruding, and without longitudinal depression behind them. Antennae submoniliform, robust, short or medium in length, usually not reaching the posterior margin of the pronotum, smoothly thickened towards the apex in some species (e.g., E. brevicollis ); in males, unmodified. Antennomeres subcylindrical or subconical, V to VII (in some species IV to IX, e.g., E. brevicollis ), wider than long or, at most, as wide as long. Clypeus transverse, approximately twice as wide as long. Labrum wide, fore margin broadly emarginate. Mandibles robust, often curved along the outer margin. Pronotum slightly or moderately convex, very transverse, usually more than 1.7 × wider than long, sides not parallel and obtusely rounded, posterior margin broadly emarginated, posterior corners rounded. Pronotum surface slightly variable, moderately convex, usually with a weak, diffuse, median longitudinal groove. Head and pronotum punctation from fine and scattered, sometimes almost absent, to deep and dense, with or without ( E. brevicollis ) very short pubescence. Hind margin of mesonotum straight or weakly arcuate. Elytra short and dehiscent, smooth to densely coriaceous or rugose. Legs normal, robust, pilose. Tarsomeres without hair pads or dense setose pubescence on the inferior side. Last abdominal ventrite broadly emarginated in males. Male genitalia: Gonostyli moderately short, distal regions wide, usually digitiform in lateral view, rounded at apex; gonocoxal plate broadly widened at the middle in dorsal view; aedeagus robust, relatively shorter than the gonoforceps or, at most, similar in length.

Taxonomic remarks.

According to the present definition of the subgenus Eurymeloe Eurymeloe , it is correlated with the E. brevicollis species group defined by Bologna (1988). It comprises a heterogeneous group of species characterised mainly by the following features in adults: small or medium in size, with a robust appearance; metallic blue or black body colour; reduced pilosity that is very scarce and short, often almost absent; wide antennomeres with V-VII usually wider than long; and variable head and pronotum punctation and elytral rugosity (see Bologna 1988, 1991).

Bologna (1988) tentatively included 22 species in the E. brevicollis species group. However, as this author pointed out, most of these species are very poorly known and, in some cases, the only morphological information on them is from the original description. As a result, the internal taxonomy of Eurymeloe s. str. is very complex and unclear ( Bologna 1988).

On the basis of the molecular and morphological data ( Reitter 1895, 1911; Escherich 1896; Martínez de la Escalera 1914; Peyerimhoff 1926; Bologna 1988, 1991, 1994a, 1994b; García-París et al. 2010; Di Giulio et al. 2013; this study), we ascribe to Eurymeloe s. str. the following species: Eurymeloe (Eurymeloe) algiricus (Escherich, 1890) (or E. brevicollis algiricus , see Bologna 2008), E. (E.) austrinus (Wollaston, 1854), E. (E.) brevicollis , E. (E.) corvinus (possibly co-specific with the previous species according to Di Giulio et al. 2013), E. (E.) crosi (Peyerimhoff, 1926), E. (E.) curticornis ( Martínez de la Escalera, 1914) (or E. brevicollis curticornis , see Bologna 2008, 2020a), E. (E.) ibericus , and E. (E.) lederi (Reitter, 1895). The taxonomic positions of E. luctuosus (Brandt & Erichson, 1832) (related to E. crosi ) and E. scabriusculus (Brandt & Erichson, 1832) (morphologically similar to E. baudii and E. glazunovi , both now included in Bolognaia ) are still uncertain ( Bologna 1988, 1991), and their assignment to Eurymeloe s. str. requires further studies.

Another 13 species [from Palaearctic Asia, except E. aleuticus (Borchmann, 1942), from the Aleutian Islands] were provisionally assigned by Bologna (1988) to the E. brevicollis species group: Eurymeloe aleuticus , E. curticollis (Kraatz, 1882), E. escherichi (Reitter, 1889), E. frontalis (Reitter, 1905), E. gaberti (Reitter, 1907), E. laevipennis (Brandt & Erichson, 1832), E. lobicollis (Fairmaire, 1891), E. mandli (Borchmann, 1942), E. mathiesseni (Reitter, 1905), E. primulus (Semenow, 1903), E. servulus (Bates, 1879), E. transversicollis (Fairmaire, 1891), and E. zolotarevi (Pliginskij, 1914). As in the previous case, additional molecular and morphological studies are required to determine the subgeneric assignment of these species.

Regarding other species of Eurymeloe , Shapovalov (2012) described Meloe (Eurymeloe) sarmaticus Shapovalov, 2012 from Russia and Central Kazakhstan and considered it closely related to the Russian-Kazakh E. aeneus (Tauscher, 1812). The last species, together with E. pusio (Wellman, 1910) and E. asperatus (Tan, 1981), were considered incertae sedis by Bologna (1988). However, recently, Bologna (2020a) integrated them into Eurymeloe (at the subgenus level), although he still considers E. aeneus a doubtful ascription. We did not examine material of these species; therefore, we cannot add new information on their current taxonomic placement.

Figures

Figure 2. Habitus of some living adult specimens of the current subgenera of Eurymeloe A subgenus Eurymeloe Eurymeloe, represented by a specimen of Eurymeloe (Eurymeloe) ibericus from Puebla de la Sierra, northern Madrid, Spain B subgenus Eurymeloe Coelomeloe, represented by a specimen of Eurymeloe (Coelomeloe) tuccia found 3 km east of Celin, Sierra de Gador, Almeria, Spain C-I subgenus Eurymeloe Bolognaia C Eurymeloe (Bolognaia) affinis from the surroundings of Bab Taza, Rif Mountains, Morocco D E. (Bolognaia) mediterraneus (type species of the subgenus Eurymeloe Bolognaia) from Puebla de la Sierra, northern Madrid, Spain E E. (Bolognaia) glazunovi from Istria, Romania F E. (Bolognaia) gomari from the surroundings of Bab Taza, Rif Mountains, Morocco G E. (Bolognaia) nanus from Alcazar de San Juan, Ciudad Real, Spain H E. (Bolognaia) fernandezi from Los Sauces, La Palma, Canary Islands I Eurymeloe orobates sp. nov., from Puerto de la Quesera, Guadalajara, Spain J Eurymeloe (Bolognaia) murinus from Tizi n'Tichka, High Atlas, Morocco. Photographs: A-C, F, G, I (ASV) E, H, J (MGP) D (J. Aznar Gonzalez de Rueda).