Lathrobium dayaoshanense Peng and Li

Peng, Zhong, Li, Li-Zhen & Zhao, Mei-Jun, 2012, New species of the genus Lathrobium Gravenhorst (Coleoptera: Staphylinidae: Paederinae) from Guangxi, South China, Zootaxa 3389, pp. 1-16 : 3

Lathrobium dayaoshanense Peng and Li , new species

( Figs. 1 A, 2)

Type material. ( 5 3, 2 ƤƤ). HOLOTYPE: 3, labelled ‘ CHINA: GUANGXI Prov. / Jinxiu County / Shiliugongli / 24.vii. 2011, alt. 850–950 m / Zhong Peng leg.’. PARATYPES: 3 3, 1 Ƥ, same label data as holotype, but ‘Yinshan Station / 23.vii. 2011, alt. 1,200 m’; 1 3, 1 Ƥ, same data, but ‘Yinshan Station / 23.vii. 2011, alt. 1,150–1,250 m / Jia-Yao Hu & Zi-Wei Yin leg.’.

Description. Measurements and ratios: BL 9.95–10.35, HL 1.26–1.30, HW 1.31–1.37, PL 1.65–1.72, PW 1.44–1.52, EL 1.11–1.17, HL/HW 0.90–0.93, HW/PW 0.90–0.92, HL/PL 0.75–0.76, PW/PL 0.87–0.88, EL/PL 0.66–0.68.

Habitus as in Fig. 1 A. Body dark brown with paler apex, legs brown, antennae brown to reddish brown.

Head quadrate (HL/HW 0.90–0.93); punctation coarse and of variable density, sparser in median dorsal area; interstices with shallow microsculpture; eyes small.

Pronotum weakly convex in dorsal view; punctation sparser than that of head; impunctate midline narrow; interstices without microsculpture.

Elytra with punctation denser than that of pronotum and well defined; hind wings reduced.

Abdomen with dense punctation; interstices with shallow, transversely striate microsculpture.

Male. Sternite VII ( Fig. 2 D) weakly concave at apical margin, and medioapical area with long setae; sternite VIII ( Fig. 2 E) with weakly asymmetric emargination and narrow impression along middle, on either side of this impression with dense and long setae; sternite IX ( Fig. 2 F) more or less symmetric; aedeagus as in Fig. 2 G– 2 I.

Female. Apical margin of tergite VIII ( Fig. 2 A) moderately pointed at middle; sternite VIII ( Fig. 2 B) longer than that of male, apical margin broadly convex; tergite IX ( Fig. 2 C) narrowly separated baso-medially; tergite X rather obtuse basally, reaching basal margin of tergite IX, not conspicuously acute apically.

Remarks. Lathrobium dayaoshanense is very similar to L. yunnanum Watanabe, 1994 from Yunnan, but separated by larger size ( Watanabe, 1994: 257, Fig. 1), the male sternite VIII having a narrow impression along the middle, dense and long setae on either side of this impression, and an aedeagus with a hook-shaped ventral process. In L. yunnanum , the male sternite VIII ( Watanabe, 1994: 258, Fig. 2) has unmodified setae on either side of a much broader medioapical impression; and the ventral process of the aedeagus ( Watanabe, 1994: 259, Fig. 3–5) is forficate.

Distribution. South China (Guangxi: Dayaoshan Nature Reserve).

Habitat. The adults were collected from the leaf litter of the forest floor by sifting.

Etymology. The species is named after its type locality.