Cephennium samothracicum, Assing, 2019

Assing, Volker, 2019, On the Staphylinidae of the Greek island Samothraki (Insecta Coleoptera), Linzer biologische Beiträge 51 (2), pp. 881-906 : 899-900

Cephennium samothracicum ASSING nov.sp. ( Figs 20-22 , 35 )

T y p e m a t e r i a l: Holotype ♂: "GR – Samothraki [23], WSW Ano Meria , 40°27'39''N, 25°38'32''E, 900 m, roots and litter, 11.IV.2019, V. Assing / Holotypus ♂ Cephennium samothracicum sp. n. det. V. Assing 2019" (cAss).

E t y m o l o g y: The name (adjective) is derived from Samothrace.

D e s c r i p t i o n: Body length 0.93 mm. Habitus as in Fig. 20 . Coloration palereddish with yellowish legs and palpi. Whole body with extremely fine punctation barely visible even at a magnification of 100 x and without microsculpture. Pronotum and elytra relatively weakly convex in cross-section. Anophthalmous, without traces of eyes. Antenna 0.4 mm long, with antennomeres IX-XI forming a distinct club; antennomeres IX-X strongly transverse and XI barely 1.5 times as long as broad.

Pronotum weakly transverse, barely 1.15 times as broad as long and 1.75 times as broad as head, broadest anteriorly and weakly tapering posteriad; lateral margins nearly straight. Elytra slender, 1.8 times as long as pronotum and 1.5 times as long as combined width, with narrow, but distinct humeral keel of approximately one-third the length of elytron. All tibiae distinctly dilated in apical two thirds.

♂: aedeagus ( Figs 21-22 ) 0.21 mm long, with broadly house-shaped ventral process in ventral view; internal sac with three pairs of sclerotized spines of distinctive shapes.

C o m p a r a t i v e n o t e s: Since the subgeneric concept currently in use is problematic (JALOSZYŃSKI & STEVANOVIĆ 2015), C. samothracicum is not assigned to any of the six subgenera represented in the Palaearctic region. Cephennium MÜLLER & KUNZE, 1822 is represented in the Greek mainland and the Aegean islands by numerous species, many of them anophthalmous or subanophthalmous and locally endemic, but mostly undescribed (MEYBOHM pers. comm.). The new species is distinguished from the four described species from the Greek mainland and Corfu currently assigned to the subgenus Phennecium NORMAND, 1912 ( C. granulum REITTER, 1884, C. ionicum HOLDHAUS, 1908, C. lesinae REITTER, 1881, C. puncticolle REITTER, 1885), as well as from other described and undescribed species of the Aegean islands and West Turkey by the morphology of the aedeagus (short parameres; shapes of the ventral process and of the internal structures).

D i s t r i b u t i o n a n d n a t u r a l h i s t o r y: This anophthalmous and most likely island-endemic species was found in the northeast of Samothraki. The holotype was sifted from litter and roots between rocks in the shade of large rocks and beneath an old oak tree at an altitude of 900 m ( Fig. 35 ).

Figures

Figs 19-26: Metrotyphlus samothracicus (19), Cephennium samothracicum (20-22), Scydmoraphes samothracicus (23-24), and Apimela procera (25-26): (19) hind leg; (20) habitus; (21-24) aedeagus in lateral and in ventral view; (25) male tergite VIII; (26) male sternite VIII. Scale bars: 20: 0.5 mm; 25-26: 0.2 mm; 19, 21-24: 0.1 mm.

Fig. 35: Type locality of Cephennium samothracicum and Scydmoraphes samothracicus (sample number 16). Bryaxis samothracicus, too, was found in this locality.