Pomphopsilla crenata (Scott) Jałoszyński, 2019

Jałoszyński, Paweł, 2019, Review of Cephennomicrus and Pomphopsilla of the Seychelles (Coleoptera, Staphylinidae, Scydmaeninae), Zootaxa 4568 (2), pp. 357-371 : 368-369

Pomphopsilla crenata (Scott) , comb. n.

( Figs 7 , 38–39, 44 )

Neseuthia crenata Scott, 1922: 207 , pl. 19, fig. 7.

Cephennomicrus crenatus (Scott) ; Jałoszyński, 2008: 32.

Type material. Lectotype (here designated; labels in Fig. 44 ): ♂, mounted on modern cardboard, but with original thick cardboard placed on the same pin, bearing a female symbol and number 112, with eight labels: " Percy Sladen / Trust Exped. / Brit.Mus. / 1926-246" [white, printed], "Mahe, '08-9 / Seychelles Exp." [white, printed], " Neseuthia / crenata / TYPE. H.Scott / TYPE " [white, handwritten, with " TYPE " printed on a piece of blue paper and glued onto the white label], " crenatus Scott / Cl. Besuchet / dét. X 1957 " [white, printed and handwritten], "Figured specimen" [red, printed and handwritten], "Type" [white circle with red margin, printed], " NESEUTHIA / crenata / Scott, 1922 / LECTOTYPE / P. JAŁOSZYŃSKI, 2019" [white, printed], and " POMPHOPSILLA / crenata / (Scott, 2019) / det. P. JAŁOSZYŃSKI, 2019" [white, printed] ( NHM).

Revised diagnosis. BL> 0.9 mm; body stout and dark brown.

Redescription. Body of male ( Fig. 7 ) stout, strongly convex, dark brown with prothoracic 'cavities' wellvisible as a pair of large light brown posterolateral translucent areas; setae on head, pronotum and elytra very short but well-visible. BL 0.95 mm.

Head broadest at large, strongly convex and coarsely faceted eyes, HL 0.13 mm, HW 0.25 mm; frons and vertex confluent, unmodified, weakly and evenly convex. Punctures on frons and vertex very fine, inconspicuous; setae very short, barely discernible. Antennae slender, with distinctly delimited dimerous club, AnL 0.38 mm, antennomeres I–II strongly elongate, III–IX each about as long as broad, X indistinctly transverse, XI about as long as IX–X combined, about 1.5 × as long as broad.

Pronotum subtrapezoidal, broadest near anterior fourth; PL 0.30 mm, PW 0.38 mm; anterior and posterior margins weakly convex, sides rounded in anterior third and nearly straight in posterior third; anterior corners broadly rounded, posterior corners strongly obtuse-angled and blunt; base with one pair of small but distinct lateral pits connected by a shallow transverse groove; lateral pronotal carinae distinctly microserrate. Punctures on pronotal disc very small and inconspicuous except for several distinct, sharply marked and dense punctures in posterior corners and along lateral carinae; setae short, moderately dense, recumbent.

Elytra oval, broadest near anterior third; EL 0.53 mm, EW 0.46 mm, EI 1.14; humeral calli distinct; adscutellar area not elevated. Punctures and setae on elytra similar to those on pronotum.

Legs moderately long and slender, unmodified.

Aedeagus ( Figs 38–39 ) in the only available specimen strongly distorted; AeL 0.18 mm; median lobe slender, endophallus with elongate, lightly sclerotized structures in subapical region; parameres long and slender, each with one apical and one subapical seta.

Female. Not studied.

Distribution. Seychelles, Mahé Island.

Remarks. Scott (1922) mentioned two females; at least one of them was recognized by Besuchet as a male, and only this specimen was available for my study. The lectotype is still mounted on the original thick mounting cardboard.

The only available male has the aedeagus (mounted by Besuchet) strongly distorted and not suitable for species identification. However, all hitherto known species of Pomphopsilla (known to occur in the continental Africa) have much smaller adults, with BL only 0.69–0.85 mm, whereas P. crenata is distinctly larger, with BL = 0.95 mm. Moreover, all remaining species are lightly pigmented, in contrast to dark P. crenata .

Figures

FIGURES 1–7. Habitus of Cephennomicrus cordithorax (1), C. cornutus (2), C. minor (3), C. perexiguus (4), C. politus (5), C. typicus (6), and Pomphopsilla crenata (7).

FIGURES 38–44. Historical (Scott's and Besuchet's) set of labels of holotypes (38, 39, 42) and lectotypes (40, 41, 43, 44). Neseuthia cordithorax (38), N. cornuta (39), N. minor (40), N. perexigua (41), N. polita (42), N. typica (43), and N. crenata (44).