Polyphylla monahansensis Hardy and Andrews

La Rue, Delbert A., 2016, Natural history, ecology, and conservation of the genus Polyphylla Harris, 1841. 1. New species from the southwestern United States and Baja California, Mexico, with notes on distribution and synonymy (Coleoptera: Scarabaeidae: Melolonthinae), Insecta Mundi 2016 (491), pp. 1-41 : 25-26

Polyphylla monahansensis Hardy and Andrews

( Fig. 42–44 )

Female description. Based on one specimen labeled “ USA, Texas: Andrews Co., dunes, 1.3 miles E. Jct. Texas 115 and Farm Road 181, 24.VII.1996, C.S. Wolfe, D.G. Marqua” (DALC).

Length 20.5 mm. Greatest width 10.5 mm. Humeral width 9.0 mm. Excluding sexual dimorphic variation as male except: Form. Robust, slightly ovate, widest at posterior 1/2. Color. Clypeus deep rufotestaceous; pygidial disc rufopiceous; venter and exposed abdominal sternites pale testaceous. Head. Anterior clypeal margin medially tumescent; frontoclypeal sutural margins coarsely eroded. Pronotum. Lateral margins and bead more acutely angled and explanate. Scutellum. Slightly narrower basally. Elytra. Squamal vestiture more evenly distributed; vittae more uniform, edges not as coarse as in male, sutural vittae absent anteriorly; subsutural and discal vittae adjoined basally. Venter. Squamal and setal vestiture reduced. Legs. Protibia strongly tridentate; dentition widely separated, distal tooth strongly recurved.

Remarks. The distribution of this species was previously amended ( La Rue 1998).

The female was encountered crawling on the sand surface at dusk in an area of semi-stabilized parabolic and barchan dunes with scattered Calamovilfa gigantea and Quercus harvardii Rydberg (sand shinnery oak: Fagaceae ) (C.S. Wolfe, personal communication). This locality is associated with the Monahans and Andrews dune fields, in Andrews, Ward, and Winkler Counties, west Texas, and are part of the Southern High Plains dune system ( Machenberg 1984; Muhs and Holliday 2001).

Figures

Figures 42–47. Described females and comparative male. Polyphylla monahansensis Hardy and Andrews. 42) Male. 43–44) Female. Polyphylla stellata Young. 45) Male. 46–47) Female.