Notorhopalotria platysoma, O’Brien, Charles W. & Tang, William, 2015

O’Brien, Charles W. & Tang, William, 2015, Revision of the New World cycad weevils of the subtribe Allocorynina, with description of two new genera and three new subgenera (Coleoptera: Belidae: Oxycoryninae), Zootaxa 3970 (1), pp. 1-87 : 19-20

Notorhopalotria platysoma Tang and O’Brien, new species

Figures: habitus: 13–16; antennal pockets: 104; male genitalia: 131–132, 176, 216; female genitalia: 243.

DESCRIPTION—Body minute to small (range 1.7–2.2 mm, mean = 2.0 mm, n = 6), robust, broad-oval; rostrum, head, prothorax and legs with fine reticulate surface with texture ranging from submatte to subshining; unicolored brown.

Male (holotype). Rostrum: short, 0.62 X as long as pronotum, brown; texture submatte, shallowly punctate; minutely, granularly denticulate dorsally and laterally from base nearly to apex; moderately strongly expanded near apex, straight but appearing ventrally curved in lateral view from apical expansion. Head: dorsal texture submatte, coarsely shallowly punctate just behind eyes, forehead between eyes with similar punctures and impunctate in medial 2/3 with fine, shallow, moderately short, narrow, basally pit-like, median sulcus; forehead moderately narrowed apically, 0.50 X as wide between median basal margin and apical margin of eyes. Antennae: scape 1.01 X longer than eye and slightly shorter than desmomeres 1–3 together, 1 short and broad, 2 narrow and elongate, 3– 7 becoming gradually more transverse; scape, desmomeres and club brown. Prothorax: very strongly transverse, 1.35 X wider than long; apex moderately weakly narrowed, evenly moderately strongly roundly expanded from apical 1/4 to basal 1/4, there weakly rounded to base; base not straight, but slightly convex and evenly curved from posterior angles of pronotum; lateral margins not denticulate, lacking evident punctures; disc with fine, shallow, indistinct punctures; surface with faint fine dense reticulation, subshining, uniformly brown. Scutellum: with lateral margins convexly curved; apically broadly U-shaped, overall with well-separated sparse fine punctures. Elytra: 0.71 X as wide as long; evenly expanded behind rounded humeri to declivity, there suddenly evenly broadly rounded to distinctly emarginate apices; with moderately fine, dense, elongate punctures; uniformly shining brown. Legs: moderately robust, procoxae weakly convex, with single large blunt anterior process; profemora asymmetrically swollen, proximally compressed with small apical pit-like impression receiving base of tibia, apical margins on each side with small subgranular teeth or processes, surface smooth, submatte, not strongly shining; protibiae stout in lateral view, with base nearly straight with obtuse bend, lacking inner tooth, inner surface very weakly medially narrowly excavate from middle to near apex, margins of groove distinctly denticulate, apex with small anterior mucro, and subequal tooth. Length, pronotum and elytron: 2.16 mm.

Female. Same as male except: Entire surface shining. Rostrum: 1.17 X longer than pronotum; lacking denticles, smooth, nearly impunctate, moderately strongly, unevenly curved. Prothorax: 1.47 X wider than long; apex narrow, strongly angulately expanded in weakly rounded line to slightly narrowed broad base. Length, pronotum and elytron: 2.11 mm.

Genitalia and Associated Structures— Male. Length of penis and apodemes together 0.74 mm (n = 1). Penis: in dorsal view margins subparallel, widest near center, from there tapering moderately toward apex, with bulge at orifice; apex with sides emarginate from orifice to rounded tip (Figs. 131, 176). Female. Sternite VIII: 0.63 mm long (n = 1); maximum angle between arms of 60˚ for half of length, then arms bending inward and becoming subparallel to slightly convergent near apices (Fig. 243). Spermathecal tube: uncoiled length ~ length of sternite VIII.

Intraspecific Variation— The rostral length relative to the pronotal length of males = 0.56–0.62 (mean = 0.59, n = 2) and of females = 1.10–1.17 (mean = 1.14, n = 2); the pronotal width relative to the pronotal length of males = 1.35–1.37 (mean = 1.36, n = 2) and of females = 1.43–1.49 (mean = 1.46, n = 2).

Etymological Note— The species name is derived from the Greek words platys (wide) and soma (body), referring to the depressed body of this weevil. The name is a noun in apposition.

Remarks— Externally similar to Notorhopalotria panamensis , except more dorsoventrally flattened. This species displays the greatest dorsoventral compression of the known Allocorynina .

Biology— Found in male cones of Zamia obliqua in Colombia. The host plant ranges from Chocó of Colombia into central Panama in the provinces of Chiriquí, Colón and Darién ( Stevenson 1993), with some gaps in distribution.

Range— Colombia, Chocó.

Material Examined— Holotype (by designation) male with the following labels: 1) [rectangular; white; printed in black ink] COLOMBIA, Chocó,/ Piedra-Piedra (Nuqui),/ ex: ♂ cone Zamia obliqua ,/ 3-9-07, A.M. Benavides; 2) [rectangular; red; printed in black ink] HOLOTYPE ♂ / Notorhopalotria / platysoma/ Tang & O’Brien 2015(CAS). Paratypes: same label data (4). Paratypes (4) are deposited in CAS, CWOB and FSCA