Tricholapita Gómez-Zurita and Cardoso, 2020

Gómez-Zurita, Jesús, Platania, Leonardo & Cardoso, Anabela, 2020, A new species of the genus Tricholapita nom. nov. and stat. nov. (Coleoptera Chrysomelidae, Eumolpinae) from New Caledonia, Zootaxa 4857 (1), pp. 85-94 : 87-88

Tricholapita Gómez-Zurita and Cardoso , new name and new status.

Type species: Taophila mars Samuelson, 2010 by original designation ( Gómez-Zurita & Cardoso 2014).

Range of lengths: 3.1–5.9 mm; range of widths: 1.4–2.8 mm. Body elongate, moderately convex, compressed dorsally and laterally on elytra; pale brown on dorsum, often with slight greenish metallic reflections in males, and dark brown without metallic shine in females.

Head hypognathous at rest; frons and vertex feebly convex, with fine longitudinal median impression; punctation heterogeneous or with double punctation, and normally abundant long setae. Clypeus longer than wide, narrower and arched at base, following convexity of frons, with arched median emargination at anterior border; punctured as on frons at least basally, often with smaller punctures apically, pubescent. Labrum transverse, sometimes slightly so, with round anterior angles and weak median emargination; finely microreticulated. Eyes large, bulging, slightly elongate dorsoventrally, feebly emarginate at inner border. Antennae of male robust, long, at least reaching middle of elytron, slightly shorter and thinner in females, usually with darker interstitial antennomeres, particularly in females; scape thick, subcylindrical, about twice as long as wide, convex anteriorly, slightly bent posteriorly; pedicel short, obovate, nearly as long as wide, about 0.3x as long as scape; antennomeres 3–6 slender, slightly clavate, glossy and sparsely pubescent, and 7–10 stouter, slightly enlarged towards apex, rugose, hirsute; third antennomere twice as long as pedicel, subequal to 4 and 6; fifth antennomere about 1.3–1.5x longer than third and about as long as seventh or longer in some species; antennomeres 8–10 about as long as or slightly longer than third, in some species 9–10 progressively shorter and thinner; eleventh antennomere longer than seventh, conical at apex.

Pronotum transverse, weakly cordiform, usually widest in front of middle, markedly convex in transverse section, with more pronounced convexity towards anterior angles; anterior border straight or feebly convex, slightly obliquely advanced over vertex, with fine margin; anterior angles straight or weakly obtuse, slightly callous and projecting anteriorly, with large trichobothrium on anterior border near angle; posterior border regularly convex, unmargined or finely margined near angles, with posterior angles obtuse and projecting laterally, with large trichobothrium at angle; sides compressed, slightly explanate with two lateral teeth at middle (exceptionally three in T. tridentata Platania and Gómez-Zurita, 2020 ); surface with dense small punctures, either smaller and denser than on frons or similar to frontal punctation, with uniformly distributed, or dense patches, of long but generally appressed setae. Hypomera smooth, glossy, sparsely punctured with punctures usually bigger than on pronotum, smaller than intervals, with anterior border nearly straight. Prosternum with anterior border concave, finely margined and narrow in front of procoxae; prosternal process about as wide as or slightly wider than transverse diameter of procoxae, deflexed and widened posteriorly, with posterior border straight, enclosing procoxae posteriorly. Mesoventrite as wide as or slightly narrower than prosternal process, enlarged posteriorly, with straight or convex posterior border. Metaventrite smooth on disc, with fine median longitudinal impression and posterior border deeply notched at middle; anterior border simple and very feebly convex between mesocoxae; surface with scattered appressed setae. Scutellum subquadrate or more often slightly transverse, with sides feebly concave and round posterior angles; microsculptured, punctured, with posteriorly recumbent fine setae.

Elytra long, wider at base than base of pronotum, with round humeral angles and marked humeri; sides weakly curved at base, widest prebasally or before of middle, progressively narrowing towards regularly curved apex; convexity of surface usually modified by obliquely flattened areas at lateral declivities or lateral depressions; surface of elytra relatively smooth in males, more irregular in females, with raised intervals forming longitudinal keels at lateral declivities; surface with dense and strong punctation, stronger than on pronotum, partially aligned in basal, sutural, marginal and apical areas, often confused at base of disc, with striae more apparent in females; surface pubescent with dense patches of appressed setae and scattered erect or semierect longer setae. Femora slender, enlarged at middle; tibiae slightly shorter than corresponding femora, straight with sinuous external border, more so in females, with a small sharp projecting tooth at apex externally, usually densely pubescent with semierect setae; tarsi shorter than corresponding tibiae, with first pro- and mesotarsomeres weakly enlarged in males; claws divaricate and appendiculate.

Pygidium regularly convex, without longitudinal groove at middle. Penis long, slender, symmetrical in most species, but with slight or moderate lateral right torsion in T. atlantis ( Platania and Gómez-Zurita, 2020) and T. aphrodita ( Gómez-Zurita, 2014) ; feebly or moderately curved ventrally, with stronger apical curvature in most species and markedly sigmoid in T. hermes ( Platania and Gómez-Zurita, 2020) ; sides slightly and gradually enlarged toward and around oval or round ostium, and converging to relatively simple blunt, angled, mucronate or incised apex. Spermatheca small, simple, with slender tubular cornu, usually as long or slightly longer than nodulus, but short and bulbous in T. tridentata (Platania and Gómez-Zurita) and T. olympica ( Platania and Gómez-Zurita, 2020) ; nodulus tubular, elongate (except in species mentioned before), with short basal bulbous ramus.

Phylogenetic support for a new species of Tricholapita

The phylogenetic analysis of rrnS sequences in Tricholapita produced a tree compatible with the phylogeny of Platania et al. (2020), including similar support for most nodes, and an optimal likelihood score of L = -2036.328875. In this phylogeny ( Fig. 2 ), the sequence obtained from individual with voucher number IBE-JGZ-3952 appeared as sister to the entire clade that we identified as associated with ultramafic substrates in Platania et al. (2020). In particular, this clade includes other species recently diverged and very similar morphologically, namely, T. riberai ( Platania and Gómez-Zurita, 2020) , T. mars (Samuelson) , T. gaea (Gómez-Zurita, 2020) , T. oceanica ( Platania and Gómez-Zurita, 2020) , and T. ouranos ( Platania and Gómez-Zurita, 2020) . This result was predictable based on the morphological features of the specimen, sympatric with T. riberai , thus also associated with ultramafic soils, but sharing traits with some of the other species, chiefly T. gaea . The lack of marked phylogenetic proximity to any of these species, however, together with the objective morphological differences observed for this specimen, can be taken as evidence that it represents a new, undescribed species.

Figures

FIGURE 2. Maximum likelihood tree based on mtDNA rrnS sequences of Tricholapita Gómez-Zurita and Cardoso showing the phylogenetic position of T. reidi sp. nov., based on the specimen that Platania et al. (2020) could not identify or relate to any of the other known species of the genus. Numbers next to internal nodes represent bootstrap support percentages.