Cephennodes (Cephennodes) gaozhaianus, Jałoszyński, Paweł, 2015

Jałoszyński, Paweł, 2015, The Cephenniini of China. VI. New species and new records of Cephennodes Reitter from Hainan, Guangxi and Guangdong (Coleoptera: Staphylinidae: Scydmaeninae), Zootaxa 3990 (2), pp. 221-234 : 231-233

Cephennodes (Cephennodes) gaozhaianus sp. n.

( Figs 5 , 18–19)

Type material. Holotype: CHINA (Guangxi Prov.): ♂, two labels: " China: Guangxi, Xingan County / Gaozhai Village, 25º37'N / 110º25'E, 217 m, mixed litter, / sifted, 10.viii.2004, J.-H. Huang" [white, printed]; " CEPHENNODES (s. str.) / gaozhaianus m. / det. P. Jałoszyński, '15 / HOLOTYPUS' [red, printed] ( SNUC).

Diagnosis. Unremarkable species with unmodified head, subhumeral elytral lines as long as only about 0.3× EL; aedeagus simonis form, with egg-shaped median lobe with broadly triangular and blunt apex, apical projections long and slender, apical hook in lateral view short and robust.

Description. Body of male ( Fig. 5 ) strongly convex but with somewhat flattened dorsum, oval with feebly marked constriction between pronotum and elytra, light brown with slightly lighter legs and distinctly lighter palps, covered with yellowish-brown vestiture. BL 1.13 mm.

Head broadest at moderately large but strongly convex and coarsely faceted eyes, HL 0.15 mm, HW 0.30 mm; vertex weakly and evenly convex and anteriorly confluent with frons; frons unmodified, evenly convex; supraantennal tubercles distinct. Punctures on vertex and frons small and dense but very shallow; setae short and sparse, suberect. Antennae moderately long, three terminal antennomeres strongly and gradually broadening, AnL 0.53 mm, antennomere I about as long as broad, II nearly twice as long as broad, III–VII each distinctly elongate, VIII and IX each about as long as broad, X distinctly transverse, XI slightly longer than IX–X together, about twice as long as broad, distinctly broader than X and with pointed apex.

Pronotum semi-oval, strongly convex but with slightly flattened disc and only slightly flattened near hind corners, broadest slightly behind middle; PL 0.35 mm, PW 0.51 mm. Anterior margin in strictly dorsal view nearly straight; lateral margins strongly and evenly rounded in anterior half and indistinctly concave just before sharpangled and acute posterior pronotal corners; posterior margin shallowly bisinuate; lateral marginal carinae in posterior 3/4 distinctly demarcated from disc, broad at pronotal base and distinctly narrowing anteriorly, lateral ante-basal pits relatively deep, each slightly closer to posterior than to lateral pronotal margin. Punctures on median part of pronotal disc small and shallow but distinct, moderately sharply marked, separated by spaces subequal to diameters of punctures or shorter, slightly unevenly distributed; punctures toward anterior and posterior pronotal margins reducing in size and depth and becoming sparser, laterally punctures becoming gradually larger, denser and slightly deeper, so that large area adjacent to each anterior corner is covered with large punctures separated by spaces shorter than their diameters, but punctures are shallow and their margins diffused, so this area does not appear coarse. Setae on pronotal disc moderately long and dense, suberect to erect.

Elytra about as convex as pronotum, oval, broadest near anterior third; EL 0.63 mm, EW 0.53 mm, EI 1.19; subhumeral lines carinate, moderately sharply marked, as long as 0.28× EL and distinctly divergent caudad; basal elytral fovea on each elytron located approximately at middle between lateral margin of mesoscutellum and subhumeral line; elytral apices unmodified, separately rounded. Punctures on elytra much smaller, shallower but not sparser than those on pronotal disc; setae distinctly longer than those on pronotum, sparse and erect. Hind wings not studied.

Metaventrite without lateral impressions, convex.

Legs moderately long and slender; all tibiae nearly straight.

Aedeagus (Figs 18–19) simonis form, AeL 0.18 mm; median lobe in ventral view drop-shaped, with broadly subtriangular and rounded apex; apical projections long and subtriangular, in lateral view with robust and short, evenly curved apical hook.

Female. Unknown.

Distribution. SE China: Guangxi Province.

Etymology. Species named after Gaozhai Village.

Remarks. This species is relatively unremarkable; the male does not have any peculiar structural modifications, and its aedeagus is a variation of the simonis form, in the least diversified variant, i.e., with a dropshaped median lobe, simple apical projections and weakly curved parameres. Species showing such features are common within the entire range of Cephennodes and special care must be taken when identifying and especially describing new taxa. Cephennodes gaozhaianus has the aedeagus most similar to those of C. nsukkaensis Jałoszyński, 2010 from Nigeria, C. clypeatus Jałoszyński 2012b from Zhejiang, and C. sichuanus Jałoszyński, 2007b from Sichuan. The aedeagi of all these species clearly differ in the shape of apical projections, and males of C. clypeatus have modified clypeus and frons.

Figures

FIGURES 1 – 5. Dorsal habitus of holotype males. Cephennodes bicavatus sp. n. (1); Cephennodes pseudobos sp. n. (2); Cephennodes huapingensis sp. n. (3); Cephennodes elevatus sp. n. (4); Cephennodes gaozhaianus sp. n. (5).