Ceracis palaceps, Zimmerman, 1942

Zimmerman, Elwood C., 1942, Ciidae of Guam, Insects of Guam-I, Honolulu, Hawaii: Bernice P. Bishop Museum, pp. 47-52 : 51-52

4. Ceracis palaceps , new species ( fig. 1 , a, b, g, h, j; pl. 1, D).

Derm moderately shiny, rather uniform chestnut brown above and below, concolorous, appendages yellowish brown; dorsal setae microscopic.

Head almost or entirely concealed from above by prothorax, crown and front but very shallowly concave in female, almost flat, very deeply and conspicuously excavated in male from side to side and top to clypeus, with a very slightly elevated median area between eyes, closely, microscopically punctate, setae microscopic; female with fore margin evenly convex in outline and not or but inconspicuously elevated; male with fore margin produced into a conspicuous, slightly upturned, transversely concave, apically truncate flange that projects almost as far beyond fronts of eyes as length of an eye, side margins slanting obliquely backward in a continuous line with inner margins of eyes. Antennae yellow with club fuscous, body of segment 1 slightly longer than broad, subovate, longer on outer side, not quite as long as 2 plus 3, 3 as long as 4 plus 5, twice as long as broad, 4 slightly longer than 5, 4 and 5 transverse; club longer than four preceding segments, segments 6 and 7 subcircular in outline and subequal in size and shape, 8 slightly longer than 7. Prothorax as broad as long in female, slightly longer, including apical projection, than broad in male; base slightly convex, slightly arcuately narrowing from base to fore margin on sides, fore margin produced over head, simply rounded in female, but with a broad, conspicuous strongly developed, dorsally emarginate, upturned process in male; longitudinal dorsal contour evenly convex from base to apex in female, evenly convex from base to about apical fourth in male, outline thence more steeply declivitous and interrupted by a slight depression before apical process and slightly more impressed on either side than at middle; lateral carina and fore and hind corners entirely concealed from above, the carina fine, similar to basal carina, hind corner broadly rounded off, thence continued in a curve, which is more convex basally than distally, to fore margin, and forming an obtuse angle of about 135 degrees with fore margin; reticulate, microscopically punctate, punctures separated by interstices as broad or broader than their diameters; setae microscopic, hardly discernible even under high magnification. El,ytra almost two thirds as broad as long and about one third longer than prothorax, bluntly bullet-shaped, subparallel-sided in basal two thirds, thence rounded to apex, base subtruncate; reticulate, punctures microscopic, dense, evidently rather shallow and not very distinct individually, appearing about as large as those on pronotum, but denser and evidently obscured by reticulations; setae microscopic, hardly discernible even under high magnification. Wings fully developed. Legs with femora stout, grooved for reception of tibiae, fore pair with a well-developed flange on the lower anterior edge in apical fourth; fore tibia compressed, expanded apically, armed with a few slender teeth on outer edge of about distal fourth in female, armed half way up side on male, mid tibiae armed with slender spine-like teeth in apical fourth in both sexes, hind tibiae with a row of slender spines or stiff setae in apical fourth in both sexes, mid and hind tibiae not so greatly expanded distally as fore tibiae, which, in males, may be only slightly less than half as broad as long. Sternum reticulate, with at most only microscopic, inconspicuous puncturation, setae hardly discernible; intercoxal process of prostermun reduced to an almost paper-thin lamella, not elevated and not continued forward to the evenly and continuously concave anterior margin, fore margin of a coxa only half as far from anterior margin as transverse chord of a coxa; mesocoxae almost contiguous, only very slightly separated; metacoxae very slightly separated, metasternum about as long along median line as first two ventrites plus half of third. Venter coarsely reticulate, not obviously punctate, setae minute; first ventrite about as long behind a coxa as 2 plus 3, simple in female, with a round, margined, setiferous, crater-like pit in male. Length, 1.25-1.5 mm.; breadth, 0.5-0.6 mm.

Holotype male, in the U. S. National Museum, allotype female in Bishop Museum, and 44 paratypes collected from a tree fungus, Aug. 25, 1937, Oakley (no. 90).

The eight segmented antennae together with the serrate tibiae and the very narrowly separated fore coxae will readily separate this species from the other Guam Ciidae .

With the exception of one species described by Pie from Sumatra, there are no other Ceracis recorded from the Pacific. Most of the species are American. Champion has described one species from India ( Ceracis fasciculosus, 1922). The Fijian Cis compressicornis (Fairmaire) Lesne was described as a Ceracis, but Lesne (1917) has shown that it belongs to Cis.

The first and second tarsal segments are fused in this species; there is only a slight constriction and no distinct suture between the segments.

Figures

FIGURE 1.-Details of Ciidae. a, outline of head and pronotum of Ceracis palaccps, female; b, the same of the male; c, the same of Cis quadridentatits; d, the same of Cis guamae; e, diagram of elytral markings of Cis quadridentatits; f, outline of head and pronotum of Cis agariconae; g and h, dorsal outlines of the front margins of the heads of the male and female of Ceracis palaceps; i, the same of Cis quadridentatus; j, fore leg of male of Ceracis palaceps.