Tocama tonkinensis (Moser, 1913) Moser, 1913

Li, Chun-Lin, Wang, Chuan-Chan, Keith, Denis & Yang, Ping-Shih, 2012, One the genus Tocama Reitter (Coleoptera, Scarabaeidae, Melolonthinae), with descriptions of two new species from Indochina, ZooKeys 177, pp. 37-48 : 42-43

Tocama tonkinensis (Moser, 1913) comb. n.

Hoplosternus tonkinensis Moser 1913: 290. Original combination

Hoplosternus pygidialis Moser, 1915: 589, syn. n.

Tocama atra atra Keith, 2006: 225, syn. n.

Tocama atra reichenbachi Keith, 2007: 338, syn. n.

Distribution.

China; Vietnam; Laos (new country record with a male collected in Mt. Phu Pan, Houaphan province, Laos, in the first author’s collections); Myanmar (new country record with two females collected nearby Putao, Kachin state, Myanmar, in the first author’s collections)

Remarks.

Moser (1913) described Hoplosternus tonkinensis based from a female (labeled as "Tonkin [presently northern Vietnam] Montes Manson April. Mai 2 –3000’ H Fruhstorfer (printed) // Hoplosternus tonkinensis Type Mos (handwritten)", currently deposited at Museum für Naturkunde der Humboldt Universitat (ZMHB)), Berlin, Germany). Subsequently, he described Hoplosternus pygidialis Moser, 1915, from a male (labeled as "Kiautschou [Guizhou Province] China (printed)// Hoplosternus pygidialis Type Mos (handwritten), deposited at ZMHB). We examined both type specimens and found that they share series of characters of pronotum shape, punctuation, setation, and male genitalia shape; these characters clearly indicate that the specimens are members of Tocama . Moreover, having examined large number of Tocama tonkinensis specimens (45 males and 43 females) from Indochina and China, we found that the sexual dimorphism of the species is particularly distinct in the shape of the pygidium, which might be the reason of separation for the previous two species by Julius Moser. We conclude that these two type specimens are conspecific.

Additionally, the intraspecific variation of Tocama tonkinensis is significant in body color. There are two main forms of body color, black and castaneous, that led Keith (2006, 2007) to separation of Tocama atra atra (black form) and Tocama atra reichenbachi (castaneous form). We consider that they are all within the variability of Tocama tonkinensis based on the examination of the type series of Tocama atra atra and Tocama atra reichenbachi (see also Figs 5-6 in Keith (2006) for the shape of male genitalia). Accordingly, we herein transfer Hoplosternus tonkinensis to Tocama and synonymize the names Hoplosternus pygidialis , Tocama atra atra and Tocama atra reichenbachi with Tocama tonkinensis .