Malipatilius Kondorosy, 2013

Kondorosy, Előd, Kovács, Szilvia & Schmidt, Péter, 2024, A review of Malipatilius (Hemiptera: Heteroptera: Rhyparochromidae), with a checklist of Lygaeoidea occurring in the Papuan Subregion, Zootaxa 5477 (2), pp. 147-170 : 155-156

Malipatilius Kondorosy, 2013

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Malipatilius Kondorosy 2013: 217 (original description, potential new species, discussion, comparison with Scolopostethus Fieber, 1860 ).

Type species: Scolopostethus forticornis Gross, 1965 , by original designation.

Redescription. Body moderately elongated, mostly dull (except shiny abdomen), partly pruinose (especially on pronotum: on anterior part widely along all margins and transversal furrow and in midline, on posterior part in midline and in two sublateral bands covering pale longitudinal spots and along all margins of scutellum).

Body densely punctate; impunctate around ocelli, on metepimeron and on corium between rows along veins Cu and R+M; punctures very dense on head. Distance between punctures on pronotum, scutellum and corium larger than size of punctures. From 3 regular rows of punctures of clavus, inner one absent in proximal half. Corium with 3 regular rows of punctures: 2 along vein Cu and 1 along inner margin of exocorium; distal half between vein R+M and exocorium with irregular punctures; with an irregular row near apical margin of corium. Abdomen with extremely fine, dense punctures.

Head pentangular, eyes almost touching anterior margin of pronotum; antenniferous tubercles 0.35–1.0 as long as eye, divergent. Ocelli situated near posterior margin of eyes, about two times nearer to them than to each other. Scape long, surpassing clypeus with at least half length. Maxillary and mandibular plates not reaching end of anteclypeus. Bucculae very low, hardly visible in lateral view. Labium surpassing mesocoxae, segment I reaching anterior margin or midline of eyes, U-shaped bucculae ending before anterior margin of eyes. Lengths of labiomeres were measured in some specimens but the authors did not find characteristic differences among the species, therefore, the measurements are not given in the descriptions.

Pronotum subtrapezoidal or campanulate, laterally strongly constricted at transversal furrow, with fine (not widened) lateral carina.Anterior collar hardly detectable, but anterior margin slightly elevated.Anterior lobe convex, often almost globose, transversal furrow deep. Basal margin almost straight, at scutellum mostly slightly convex. Scutellum longer than wide, with median hump, without typical Y-keel. Exocorium strongly widened at level of apex of scutellum, so body widest here. Apical margin of corium straight. Membrane with distinct veins, vein Cu strongly arched, S-shaped, in anterior half touching vein AA1+2 (inner vein). Profemur with two ventral rows of tiny teeth; anteroventral row in middle with large straight sharp tooth. Metafemur with conspicuous tooth at onefifth length posteroventrally. Protibiae slightly bent, tibiae without the usual stiff setae, but with dense longitudinal rows of tiny dark tubercles, two rows conspicuous on inner side, but rows on outer side often hardly visible.

Ostiolar peritreme of metathoracic scent gland apparatus elongated, strongly curving posteriad with anterior elongation; on males more emergent, widened and paler than on females, highly different in all species where males are known. Evaporatorium usually occupying more than half of metepisternum.

Abdominal sternites and spiracles as typical in Drymini . Suture between sternum IV and V curved anteriorly near lateral margin as typical in Rhyparochrominae , not reaching lateral margin. Male genitalia not very characteristic, pygophore and paramere in all species (where they were examined) similar (as Figs 9–10 ).

Discussion. Malipatilius was described based on a single species from eastern Australia. The discovery of several new species from New Guinea necessitates changes in the original definition of the genus, therefore a redescription is given above.

Malipatilius belongs to the morphologically heterogeneous tribe Drymini with 61 valid genus-level taxa (58 genera and 3 subgenera) (Dellapé & Henry 2024, Kondorosy, unpublished data). No larger monophyletic subgroups or clear evolutionary lineages are currently recognized in this tribe, except some small generic groups (see e.g., Kondorosy 1996). The most special features of Malipatilius are the very narrow lateral margin of the dull pronotum which is strongly constricted at transversal furrow; the strongly widened exocorium from the level of the apex of the scutellum; the unique form of the ostiolar peritreme of the metathoracic scent gland apparatus; and the armature of the metafemur. Also, a dark membrane with white basal spots and the lack of stiff setae on the tibiae are rather rare features among Drymini , but they are found in all known Malipatilius species.

Among the known genera a dull, strongly constricted pronotum with very narrow or missing lateral margin is found only in Mizaldus Distant, 1901 (and the probably identical Neomizaldus Scudder, 1968 ), Notochilaster Breddin, 1907 , and Rhodiginus Distant, 1901 . All of them share with Malipatilius the lack of stiff setae on the tibiae (present in about one-third of Drymini genera). A subbasal tooth on the metafemur, characteristic for Malipatilius , is also present in a few additional genera: Grossander Slater, 1976 , Notochilaster (both from the Oriental and Australian Regions) and the geographically separated Malgadrymus Zámbó & Kondorosy, 2022 from Madagascar (cf. Zámbó et al. 2022). The large and peculiar external scent gland apparatus is unique for Malipatilius , however, similar but less developed structures are also found in Retrodrymus Gross, 1965 and (without the anteriad elongated part of the peritreme) in Trichodrymus Lindberg, 1927 as well; both of these two genera have very few shared characters with Malipatilius .

Among the other mentioned genera potentially related to Malipatilius , Mizaldus has a peculiar scutellum and other specialized features; Rhodiginus is also different in various features, most importantly its unarmed profemur and the concave apical margin of the corium; Grossander has a widened lateral margin of the pronotum and small evaporatorium; and lastly, Notochilaster has a pair of small teeth on head ventrally and unarmed profemora. Consequently, Malipatilius is very well separable from all described genera of Drymini .

Figures

FIGURES 9–10. Male genitalia of Malipatilius horvathi Kondorosy & Schmidt, sp. nov., 9: pygophore; 10: paramere. FIGURES 11–16. Metepisternum of males of Malipatilius species: 11 M. forticornis, 12 M. horvathi, 13 M. microps, 14 M. bodisjuditae, 15 M. pilosus, 16 M. minutus