Cephennium selinonum ASSING, 2019

Assing, Volker, Brachat, Volker & Meybohm, Heinrich, 2019, Monograph of the Staphylinidae of Crete (Greece). Part II. Descriptions of new species (Insecta: Coleoptera), Beiträge Zur Entomologie = Contributions to Entomology 69 (2), pp. 239-289 : 268

Cephennium selinonum ASSING spec. nov.

urn:lsid:zoobank.org:act:5C1D00CC-C8A3-4043-92A9-773137CD17CB

( Figs 106–108 )

Type material: Holotype ♂: “GR – Crete [50], E Kandanos , Anisaraki , 35°19'53"N, 23°45'34"E, 560 m, soil washing, 25.III.2018, V. Assing / Holotypus ♂ Cephennium selinonum sp. n. det. V. Assing 2018” ( cAss).

Etymology: The specific epithet is an adjective derived from Selino, the name of the district where the type locality is situated.

Description: Body length 0.95 mm; width of pronotum 0.36 mm; width of elytra 0.39 mm. Habitus as in Fig. 106 . Coloration: body pale-reddish; legs, antennae, and maxillary palpi yellow. Eyes reduced, composed of approximately five ommatidia without pigmentation. Head, pronotum, and elytra without microsculpture. Pubescence sparse, long, suberect, yellowish, and directed predominantly posteriad on head, elytra, and most of pronotum, denser and directed transversely mediad at posterior margin of pronotum. Punctation of head and elytra extremely fine, barely noticeable at a magnification of 150 x, that of pronotum distinct and moderately dense. Tibiae moderately club-shaped, dilated in distal twothirds. Antenna 0.4 mm long, with distinct club formed by the large antennomeres IX–XI; antennomere VIII much smaller than the neighbouring antennomeres VII and IX; antennomere XI approximately 1.5 times as long as broad. Pronotum distinctly transverse, approximately 1.2 times as broad as long. Elytra with a pronounced antero-lateral process and with a distinct oblique humeral fold on either side.

♂: aedeagus small, 0.21 mm long; ventral process apically convex in ventral view, distinctly curved and acute in lateral view; internal sac with four sclerotized spines of subequal length ( Figs 107–108 ).

Comparative notes: Cephennium selinonum is reliably distinguished from other species of the C. arcuatum group by the shape and internal structures of the aedeagus. It additionally differs from C. chanianum , its geographically closest congener, by smaller size, a less slender habitus, a more distinctly transverse, anteriorly less strongly broadened, and more distinctly punctate pronotum, much shorter antennae, and less distinctly club-shaped legs.

Distribution and natural history: The type locality is situated in the mountain range to the southeast of Kandanos, Southwest Crete. It is a ruderal habitat in the periphery of a village at the margin of an olive grove. The holotype was collected from soil beneath a very old Platanus orientalis tree at an altitude of 560 m.

Figures

Figs 100–113: Gabrius candicus (100–101) and Cephennium spp. of the C. arcuatum group: C. arcuatum (102–103), C. thripticum (104–105), C. selinonum (106–108), C. meybohmi (109–110), and C. idanum (111–113): male sternite VIII (100); female abdominal segments IX–X (101); habitus (102, 106); aedeagus in lateral and in ventral view (103–105, 107–113). Scale bars: 102, 106: 0.5 mm; 100–101: 0.2 mm; 103–105, 107–113: 0.1 mm.