Siopelus (Neosiopelus) liangi, Kataev, 2022

Kataev, Boris M., 2022, Notes on carabid beetles of the genera Coleolissus and Siopelus (Coleoptera: Carabidae: Harpalini), with description of four new species with unusual aedeagi from India and China, Zootaxa 5168 (3), pp. 285-305 : 301-304

Siopelus (Neosiopelus) liangi sp. n.

( Figs. 20 , 46–49 )

Type material. Holotype: male, China, Yunnan, Jinping: border Mengla and Nafa , 323 m, 22°38′57.0″N 103°08′29.6″E, 15.XII.2003, B. Kataev leg. ( ZIN).

Description (male). Body comparatively wide, medium-sized for the genus, length 6.5 mm, width 2.9 mm. Habitus as in Fig. 20 .

Body black, shiny, not iridescent, with labrum, mandibles basally and clypeus apically yellowish brown, very narrow margins of pronotum reddish brown; palps, antennae and legs yellowish brown; antennae from antennomere 3 and tarsi partly slightly infuscate; coxae blackish brown.

Head medium-sized (HWmax/PWmax 0.66, HWmin/PWmax 0.52). Eyes large, moderately convex (HWmax/ HWmin 1.31), separated ventrally from buccal fissure by distance less than width of antennomere 2 basally. Genae with a few fine and short setae. Tempora flat, gently sloping to neck. Labrum very shallowly concave at middle of apical margin. Clypeus slightly flattened and very shallowly arcuately emarginated along apical margin and labral base partly visible in this emargination; one setigerous pore at each outer angle of clypeus. Fronto-clypeal suture fine and slightly arched. Frontal foveae punctiform. Fronto-ocular furrows very fine and short. Supraorbital furrows very narrow, touching upper margin of eyes. Supraorbital setigerous pores small, situated slightly before level of posterior margin of eyes and removed from supraorbital furrows by distance approximately equal to width of antennomere 2 basally. Mentum without median tooth, separated from submentum by complete transverse suture; epilobes comparatively narrow; submentum with one pair of long lateral setae. Ligular sclerite moderately narrowed distally, almost truncate at apex, with one pair of ventroapical setae. Paraglossae glabrous, wide, markedly projecting beyond ligular sclerite and not separated from it. Basal labial palpomere not carinate; penultimate labial palpomere narrower and shorter than apical one. Mandibles not elongate, sharply curved in apical quarter; apex of left mandible subtruncate in frontal view. Dorsal surface glabrous, finely and irregularly punctate and with fine longitudinal wrinkles on clypeus laterally. Dorsal microsculpture highly obliterated, consisting of indistinct slightly transverse meshes. Antennae slender, surpassing pronotal basal edge by approximately two apical antennomeres, pubescent from middle of antennomere 3, with antennomeres 4–8 about two times as long as wide, and basal antennomere slightly longer than antennomere 3.

Pronotum markedly transverse (PWmax/PL 1.48), widest at the middle, more strongly narrowed apically than basally (PWmax/PWmin-ap 1.48, PWmax/PWmin-bas 1.15), with one lateral seta inserted in the end of anterior third. Sides rounded along entire length, more widely in basal half; lateral bead complete, throughout very narrow. Apical margin moderately emarginated, almost straight medially, very narrowly bordered along entire length. Apical angles protruding anteriorly, narrowly rounded at tip. Basal margin almost straight medially, slightly rounded laterally, bordered along entire length, longer than apical margin (PWmin-bas/PWmin-ap 1.29) and slightly shorter than base of elytra between humeral angles; basal edge without fringe of short setae. Basal angles obtuse, rounded at apex. Disc convex, widely depressed laterobasally. Basal foveae wide and very shallow, vaguely outlined. Median line fine, superficial, not reaching apical and basal margins. Anterior transverse depression very shallow. Disc densely and finely punctate, more coarsely in laterobasal depressions, more finely in remaining surface, with finest punctures in central portion; punctures in laterobasal depressions confluent. Microsculpture not recognized under 56x magnification.

Elytra convex, comparatively wide (EL/EW 1.44, EL/PL 2.65, EW/PWmax 1.24), widest just behind middle; sides rounded apically and basally, almost straightly diverging in medial portion; subapical sinuation shallow, but distinct. Humerus angulate, without denticle at apex. Sutural angle almost right, slightly blunted at tip. Basal edge moderately arched, forming an obtuse angle with lateral margin. Striae impressed along entire length, reaching anteriorly basal elytral edge, slightly widened apically. Parascutellar (abbreviate) striole long, with a large setigerous pore basally isolated from basal elytral edge. Intervals narrowed apically, slightly convex on disc and more strongly convex before apex. Intervals 3 and 5 with a series of small discal setigerous pores adjoining striae 2 and 5 respectively along entire length; interval 7 with one discal pore adjoining stria 6 in its basal quarter on left elytron and without pore on right elytron. All intervals densely and somewhat coarsely punctate, with two or three punctures across each interval in its middle portion; two lateral intervals with scattered very fine and short setae. Marginal umbilicate series consisting of 18 and 22 setigerous pores, concentrated apically and basally. Lateral groove slightly widened apically, with short elongate convexity along the lateral groove at apex. Microsculpture on intervals recognized only preapically (meshes obliterated, transverse); lateral groove and bottom of striae with distinct isodiametric microsculpture. Wings fully developed.

Ventral side of thorax finely punctate and with very fine and short scattered setae. Metepisternum markedly longer than wide, strongly narrowed posteriorly.

Metacoxae finely punctate and pubescent, each only with two obligatory setigerous pores. Profemur with moderately deep longitudinal excavation on inner side distally. Metafemur ventrally with two long setae at posterior margin and with two very short setae at anterior margin laterally. Protibia without longitudinal sulcus on dorsal side, with (in male) two or three preapical spines on outer margin. Tarsi very sparsely setose dorsally. Pro- and mesotarsomeres 2–4 (in male) weakly widened, with biseriate adhesive scales ventrally (only with a few scales on mesotarsomeres); pro- and mesotarsomere 1 elongate, without scales, about as long as pro- and mesotarsomeres 2 and 3, respectively, combined. Metatarsus slender, as long as HWmax; metatarsomeres 1 and 2 only slightly and metatarsomere 3 and 4 markedly widened distally; metatarsomere 1 elongate, as long as metatarsomeres 2 and 3 combined. Tarsomere 5 with two or three pairs of ventro-lateral setae.

Abdominal sternites with fine and short setae; apex of last visible sternite (VII) (in male) widely rounded, with two pairs of marginal setae; these setae not distant from margin.

Aedeagus ( Figs. 46–49 ) with comparatively large parameres ( Figs. 48, 49 ). Median lobe of aedeagus in lateral view ( Fig. 46 ) arcuate, with ventral margin convex in middle portion; in dorsal view ( Fig. 47 ) almost straight, with large oval lamella protruded on the left side; terminal lamella wide, much longer than wide, rounded at apex. Apical orifice in dorsal position. Internal sac three large groups of long spines.

Etymology. The species is named after my good friend and colleague Hongbin Liang (Beijing), a talented carabidologist and tireless researcher of the Chinese, particularly of Yunnan, fauna.

Comparison. Except for the exclusively Oriental taxon Harpaliscus Bates, 1892 , treated either as a separate genus (e. g. Kataev & Wrase, 2017), or as a subgenus of Siopelus (e. g. Facchini, 2021), or even as a synonym of the latter genus ( Noonan, 1985a), only one species of Siopelus in narrow sense, S. tamilnadensis Kataev, 2002 , has been known from the Oriental region so far, with all other members distributed in the Ethiopian region. Siopelus tamilnadensis , known from India, Nepal and Myanmar ( Kataev, 2002; Kataev & Wrase, 2016), is isolated from other Siopelus not only geographically but also taxonomically due to an unique combination of morphological characters somewhat intermediate between Siopelus s. str. and Laparhetes Jeannel, 1946 ( Kataev, 2002) . In having ciliate basal edge of pronotum and distinct pubescence on lateral intervals of elytra, S. tamilnadensis is also similar to the members of the Ethiopian genus Afromizonus Basilewsky, 1947 and the Oriental genus Prakasha Andrewes, 1919 . In contrast, S. liangi sp. n. has all distinctive features of the subgenus Neosiopelus Basilewsky, 1946 ; it distinctly differs from S. tamilnadensis in having flatter body lacking bluish green lustre on elytra, pronotum and elytra more coarsely and densely punctate on disc, pronotal basal edge without fringe of short setae, elytral interval 7 without series of discal setigerous pores (only one such pore present on left elytron in the holotype), lateral intervals more scarcely (rather indistinctly) pubescent, protibia not sulcate dorsally and male pro- and mesotarsi narrower. The new species also differs from S. tamilnadensis and all other congeners in very unusual asymmetrical median lobe of aedeagus with lateral lamella on the left side.

Among the Ethiopian species of Neosiopelus , S. liangi sp. n. is similar in habitus to S. babaulti (Basilewsky, 1946) from Central and East Africa, which also has pronotum and elytra densely and coarsely punctate, elytral interval 7 without row of setigerous pores, and mentum edentate, but well differs from the new species in greater body size (7.5–8.5 mm) and in having pronotum less transverse, with basal angles more widely rounded and elytral striae wider. Additionally, discal pores of S. babaulti are larger, its male pro- and mesotarsi are more strongly widened and median lobe of aedeagus is without lateral lamella.

Distribution. Known from southern Yunnan, China. The first record of Siopelus (subgenus Neosiopelus ) from China.

Figures

FIGURES 19, 20. Coleolissus iris Andrewes, 1924 (Pakistan), habitus (19); Siopelus liangi sp. n. (holotype), habitus (20). Scale bars = 1.0 mm.

FIGURES 46–49. Siopelus liangi sp. n. (holotype). 46, 47, median lobe of aedeagus; 48, left paramere; 49, right paramere. Left lateral (46, 49), dorsal (47) and right lateral (48) views. Scale bar = 0.5 mm.