Tychius morawitzi, Becker, 1864

Jiang, Chunyan, Caldara, Roberto & Zhang, Runzhi, 2020, The genus Tychius Germar (Coleoptera: Curculionidae: Curculioninae) in China, with description of three new species, Zootaxa 4856 (1), pp. 1-62 : 27

Tychius morawitzi group

Remarks. All the species of this group are clearly characterized by the completely reddish integument, the dorsal vestiture of recumbent very dense, wide, subquadrate to subrounded, partly concave scales, arranged in double regular rows on each elytral interstria and by subrecumbent, intermixed elongate to wide seta-like scales on the pronotum and in a single median row on elytral interstriae and striae. Moreover, the eyes are completely flat, the antennal funicle has seven segments which are subquadrate and densely covered with wide scales, the femora are unarmed and the legs lack sexual characters. The spermatheca is poorly different in all species: has the terminal portion of the ductus sclerotized, a robust and distinct ramus as well as collum and nodulus, with cornu narrowing in basal half. Since all these species are known to feed on plants belonging to the genus Alhagi in Central Asia, they most likely live on A. sparsifolia Shap. in China, which currently is the only species reported from this country.