Paraneseuthia olszanowskii, Jałoszyński, 2020

Jałoszyński, Paweł, 2020, Four new Palaearctic, Australian and Oriental species of Paraneseuthia Franz (Coleoptera, Staphylinidae, Scydmaeninae), Zootaxa 4858 (2), pp. 231-240 : 236-237

Paraneseuthia olszanowskii sp. n.

( Figs 15–19 )

Type material. Holotype: INDONESIA (West Sumatra Province): ♂, two labels: “ SUMATRA: W Sum. #21 / Palopo Nat. Res. N / Bukittinggi, 900 m / 18-20.XI.1989, Löbl / Agosti, Burckhardt” [white, printed]; “ PARANESEUTHIA / olszanowskii m. / P. Jałoszyński, 2020 / HOLOTYPUS ” [red, printed] ( MHNG).

Diagnosis. Body middle-sized (BL> 1.2 mm, but clearly less than 1.5 mm), stout, covered with conspicuously dense, long and suberect setae; eyes moderately large and convex; male head, protibia and metaventrite unmodified; aedeagus heavily sclerotized, thick-walled, with symmetrical, pear-shaped median lobe with emarginate apex and single median apical projection, with oval and exceptionally small diaphragm situated in sub-median region.

Description. Body of male ( Fig. 15 ) stout and strongly convex, light brown, setae slightly lighter than cuticle; BL 1.21 mm.

Head broadest at moderately large and relatively strongly convex, coarsely faceted eyes, HL 0.15 mm, HW 0.28 mm; vertex and frons confluent and convex at middle, but slightly impressed at sides; supraantennal tubercles indistinct. Punctures on vertex and frons inconspicuous, setae sparse, short and suberect. Antennae ( Fig. 15 ) short but slender, with distinctly delimited trimerous club, AnL 0.55 mm, antennomeres I–V each elongate (III–V weakly so), VI–VIII each about as long as broad, IX–X each transverse, XI indistinctly broader than X, indistinctly longer than IX–X together, about 1.8 × long as broad.

Pronotum ( Fig. 15 ) subrectangular and strongly transverse, with all margins rounded, broadest near middle; PL 0.34 mm, PW 0.49 mm; anterior and posterior corners obtuse-angled and blunt; pronotal base with barely discernible, tiny and diffuse median pit and two pairs of small but distinct lateral pits, of which the lateralmost pair is developed as elongate impressions. Punctures on pronotal disc fine and inconspicuous; setae long, dense and suberect.

Elytra ( Fig. 15 ) together oval, broadest between middle and anterior third and weakly narrowing posterad, evenly, strongly convex; EL 0.73 mm, EW 0.60 mm, EI 1.21; humeral calli prominent, elongate; basal impressions lacking; apices separately rounded. Punctures on elytra inconspicuous, small and diffuse; setae long, dense and suberect. Hind wings present.

Legs moderately long and slender; unmodified, mesotibiae indistinctly recurved.

Aedeagus ( Figs 16–19 ) pear-shaped, moderately stout, conspicuously thick-walled, AeL 0.25 mm; median lobe in ventral view symmetrical; apex with deep median emargination and elongate median projection protruding through ostium; diaphragm exceptionally small, oval and situated in sub-median region; parameres slender, with 2 apical setae.

Female. Unknown.

Distribution. Central-western Sumatra.

Etymology. This species is dedicated to the late Ziemowit Olszanowski, a distinguished Polish acarologist, a specialist on Oribatida, with whom I cooperated on a long-term project focused on characterizing prey preferences of acarophagous Scydmaeninae. Long hours spent together in his tiny office full of paintings, talking about mites and art, left me deeply impressed by Ziemowit’s engaging personality and unparalleled knowledge.

Remarks. This species is most similar to P. joeparkeri Jałoszyński, 2014 , of Perak, West Malaysia. Males of both species share a similar body form (especially proportions of pronotum and elytra), and their aedeagi may appear identical at the first sight. However, P. olszanowskii clearly differs from P. joeparkeri in shapes and proportions of antennomeres. In P. olszanowskii , the pedicel is twice as long as broad, vs. 1.5 × as long as broad in P. joeparkeri . In P. olszanowskii , antennomeres III–V are weakly elongate; in P. joeparkeri only antennomere III is weakly elongate, IV and V are as long as broad. Moreover, in P. olszanowskii setae on the pronotum and elytra are proportionally shorter and less erect. The aedeagi, although similar, differ in several features. In. P. olszanowskii , the median lobe in ventral view has slenderer proximal half, and the distal region delimited by a distinct constriction, so that sides of the distal region are diverging, and then converging toward apex. In. P. joeparkeri , the sides of the distal portion of median lobe are parallel and then converging toward apex. The diaphragm in P. olszanowskii is oval and situated close to the middle of median lobe; in P. joeparkeri the circular diaphragm is in the sub-basal area. In lateral view, the median lobe in P. olszanowskii has a conspicuously strongly projecting region surrounding the diaphragm (weakly projecting in P. joeparkeri ), and the highest point of the aedeagal apex situated close to the ventral wall of median lobe (close to the dorsal wall in P. joeparkeri ). Also the shape of parameres is different in these species: in P. olszanowskii the parameres in ventral view have the apical region curved mesad, vs. straight in P. joeparkeri . Paraneseuthia titiwangsana Jałoszyński, 2014 may belong to the same group of apparently closely related species. This Paraneseuthia , known to occur in Pahang / Selangor, West Malaysia, has different proportions of the pronotum and elytra, much deeper constriction between them, and much sparser setae, but its aedeagus shows the same general form, with emarginate apex forming a pair of subtriangular lateral projections (in P. joeparkeri and P. titiwangsana bearing additionally a pair of short setae, not found in P. olszanowskii ).

Figures

FIGURES 15–19. Paraneseuthia olszanowskii sp. n., male. Dorsal habitus (15); aedeagus in ventral (16, 18) and lateral (17, 19) views.