Oberea flavescens Breuning, 1947

Li, Zhu, Cuccodoro, Giulio & Chen, Li, 2017, Some taxonomic notes on the genus Oberea Dejean, 1835 from Asia (Coleoptera, Cerambycidae, Lamiinae), ZooKeys 647, pp. 121-136 : 122-123

Oberea flavescens Breuning, 1947 rest. stat. Figs 1, 2

Oberea flavescens Breuning, 1947: 146. Type locality: China, Sichuan.

Oberea atropunctata v. flavescens : Breuning 1962: 169.

Redescription.

Body (Fig. 1) 17.5-17.9 mm long and 3.0 mm wide. Head ochreous, apical mandible dark brown; antennae reddish brown, scape dark brown; ventral surface (except the abdominal sternite II and III black) and legs pale yellowish brown, tarsi darker. Body clothed with short golden pubescence and some erect hairs on pronotum, base of elytra and ventral surface of the basal antennal segments. Head slightly narrower than prothorax, vertex distinctly depressed at middle with a groove; eyes very large, inferior lobes twice as long as the gena in male and 1.5 times in female. Antennae distinctively shorter than body, reaching the apical fourth of elytra, antennomere ratio: 12.3: 2.5: 16.0: 15.8: 15.8: 15.9: 15.7: 15.4: 13.5: 12.6: 12.5 in males and 14.1: 3.0: 14.8: 14.2: 14.1: 14.9: 15.3: 15.1: 14.8: 14.4: 13.6: 13.5 in females. Prothorax wider than long; apical and basal margins slightly emarginated; sides rounded at middle, slightly constricted basally and apically; pronotum raised in middle, finely and densely punctured. Scutellum squared, slightly emarginated. Elytra very long, nearly 5.5 times as long a humeral width, and 4.5 times as long as head and prothorax combined, slightly narrowed from behind base to apical quarter, basal punctured arranged in 6 longitudinal series, and the punctures large and deep at basal area, gradually finer and irregular towards apex. Metepisternum and sides of abdominal segments finely punctured. Hind femora reaching posterior edge of abdominal segment I; hind tibiae almost twice as long as tarsi. Abdominal sternite V with a shallow triangular concave in males and with a median longitudinal groove in females.

Male terminalia: (Fig. 2) Tergite VIII broader than long, apex truncated and slightly emarginated, densely clothed with short setae (Fig. 2a); tegmen curved in profile, parameres elongate, mostly covered with long setae at the apical half; base of each parameres transversely and obliquely ridged on ventral side; the ridge covered with dense fine hairs (Fig. 2b-e); Median lobe 1.1 times as long as tegmen and slightly curved in profile; the median struts 3/5 times as long as the whole median lobe in length; dorsal plate slightly longer than ventral plate; apex of ventral plate rounded; median foramen rounded (Fig. 2f); endophallus with 2 pairs of rods at apical portion; longer pair very slender baculiform, about 3.5 times as long as shorter pair (Fig. 2g).

Type material examined.

Oberea flavescens Breuning: Holotype, ♀, Chine, Szetschuan, Tatsienlu (MNHG).

Additional material examined.

China, Sichuan: 1♂, Chine, Szetschuan, Tatsienlu (MHNG) [a mislabeled paratype]

Distribution.

China (Sichuan).

Remarks.

This species was first described by Breuning in 1947 based on a specimen from Sichuan Province, China but it was downgraded to a variety of Oberea atropunctata Pic, 1916 in his revisionary work ( 1960 - 1962). A careful examination and comparison of the types of Oberea flavescens and Oberea atropunctata (Figs 4-5) show that they are different species. Oberea flavescens differs from Oberea atropunctata in having longer elytra and shorter antennae. They can be distinguished by having differently shaped male genitalia, the long pair of rods being 3.5 times as long as the short pair (1.5 times as long as in Oberea atropunctata ) and the short pair consisting of two simple short rods.