Caulophilus ayotzinapa Barrios-Izás, 2016

Barrios-Izás, Manuel & Coty, David, 2016, A New Fossil Species ofCaulophilusWollaston, 1854 (Coleoptera: Curculionidae: Cossoninae) from Mexican Amber, The Coleopterists Bulletin 70 (1), pp. 177-179 : 177-179

Caulophilus ayotzinapa Barrios-Izás , new species ( Figs. 1–5 )

Diagnosis. Caulophilus ayotzinapa can be distinguished from other species of Caulophilus by the subquadrate shape of the pronotum (subtriangular in some species), distance between eyes in dorsal view less than the width of an eye (separated by at least their own width in other species), shallow seriate-punctate pattern of striae (coarsely punctate in other species), interstices 8 and 9 costate (costate or not in other species), inner margin of

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4) Head and prothorax, ventral view; 5) Thorax and legs, ventral view.

tibia abruptly expanding from the base to the middle (subparallel in other species), and elytra glabrous (with setae in some species).

Description. Length 2.56 mm, including the rostrum, width 0.68 mm. Body color probably black, cylindrical, dorsoventrally compressed, glabrous, coarsely punctate, alutaceous. Rostrum stout, feebly curved, finely punctate, 0.5X length of pronotum, antenna inserted at middle, scrobes well-defined, lateral, oblique, 1.3X longer than scape, extending from 3/4 to lower anterior margin of eye. Antenna glabrous, except for club and last funicular article, funiculus 7-articulated, articles I and II moniliform, III–VII transverse, scape as long as articles I–IV, eyes rounded and large, separated by less than width of rostrum in dorsal view. Pronotum oval, almost as broad as long, narrower than base of elytra, slightly constricted in front, discoid in lateral view, short setae on front margin, punctures more or less equidistant. Prosternum flat between front coxae, intercoxal distance more than half own width and gradually increasing between meso- and metacoxae, procoxae separated by less than own diameter, pro- and mesocoxae rounded, hind coxae transverse. Elytra twice as long as pronotum, finely striate, 10 striae, interstices much broader than striae, uniseriate-punctate, convex at elytral declivity, interstices IV and V depressed behind middle, striae X incomplete ending posterior to level of metacoxae, interstices IX and X costate, humeri quadrate, scutellum oval, semitruncate at base. Metaventrite large, almost 3X diameter of mesocoxae, coarsely punctate, depressed across own mid-length. Abdominal ventrites I and II subequal in size, abdominal ventrite I depressed on disk, abdominal ventrites III–IV together as long as abdominal ventrite II. Punctures on abdomen weakly impressed. Femora clavate, 1.4X longer than tibiae, tibiae laterally compressed, outer margin straight, inner margin gradually widening from base to middle, unci stout, almost as large as tarsomere V, premucro present at least on pro- and mesotibiae, trochanter moderately developed, tarsomeres I–III cylindrical, tarsomere II slightly shorter than others, tarsomere III with dense vestiture of setae but not forming spongy pad.

Material Examined. 1♂, deposited in the Rafael Landívar University Collection. Holotype: MEXICO: Chiapas, Totolapa, Mina del Río Salado , 2010 / TOT 052.3 Coleoptera / Holotype ♂ Caulophilus ayotzinapa Barrios-Izás sp. nov.

Etymology. Ay o t z i n a p a c o m e s f r o m t h e Nahuatl language and is the name of a town in Guerrero, Mexico. The name is dedicated to the memory of the students of the “Escuela Normal de Ayotzinapa”, Mexico, who were victims of the crime at Iguala on 26 September 2014.

Remarks. The species described here is best placed within the genus Caulophilus by the seven funicular articles, convex and slightly transverse eyes, dorsoventrally compressed body, distance between procoxae, and distance of the procoxae from the posterior margin of the prosternum, and semiparallel rostral margins in dorsal view. Caulophilus ayotzinapa is similar to Caulophilus ashei Davis and Engel, 2006 from Dominican amber but is easily differentiated by having a pronotum narrower than the elytra, elytra with shallow impressed striae, costate interstices, and glabrous elytra.

Discussion. The weevil genus Caulophilus currently comprises 16 extant species: C. costatus Champion, 1909 ; C. dirutus ( Champion, 1909) ; C. dubius (Horn, 1873) ; C. filirostris ( Champion, 1909) ; C. guatemalensis ( Champion, 1909) ; C. lineatocollis ( Champion, 1909); C. oryzae ; C. ovatulus (Hustache, 1938) ; C. quichensis ( Champion, 1909) ; C. rhyncoloides ( Champion, 1909) ; C. rubicundus ( Champion, 1909) ; C. rufipes ( Champion, 1909) ; C. rufotestaceus ( Champion, 1909) ; C. sericatus ( Champion, 1909) ; C. veraepacis ( Champion, 1909) ; and C. venezolanus (Kuschel, 1959) . Members of this genus are distributed in North, Central, and South America, the West Indies, Seychelles, and Europe. Moreover, eight fossil species have been previously described: C. ashei ; C. bennetti Davis and Engel, 2007 ; C. falini Davis and Engel, 2007 ; C. swensoni Davis and Engel, 2007 ; C. camptus Poinar and Legalov, 2014 ; C. ruidipunctus Poinar and Legalov, 2014 ; C. elongatus Poinar and Legalov, 2014 ; and C. zherikhini Nazarenko, Legalov, and Perkovsky, 2011 . Caulophilus is well represented in the fossil record from Dominican amber and Baltic amber.

This specimen of C. ayotzinapa is the first cossonine weevil described from Mexican amber and the second weevil after Gerato z ygops durhami (Zimmerman 1971) ( Curculionidae : Conoderinae ) that has been described from mines in northwestern Chiapas. The age of this deposit, as well as for the main Mexican amber locality, Simojovel, is still in debate. Its age has been proposed to date from the late Oligocene to middle Miocene (Coty et al. 2014). It is considered that the fossil resin could have be secreted by trees of Hymenaea mexicana Poinar and Brown (Fabaceae) or other Hymenaea L. species.

Considering Caulophilus as monophyletic, its past distribution suggests a colonization of the West Indies from Mesoamerica. A comprehensive phylogenetic and biogeographic revision of Caulophilus will help us to understand the patterns of colonization of the biota from Mesoamerica to the West Indies, or if reverse migration and colonization has occurred.

Figures

Figs. 1–5. Caulophilus ayotzinapa. 1) Habitus, dorsal view; 2) Habitus, lateral view; 3) Habitus, ventral view;