Cephennium thripticum 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 : 267-268

Cephennium thripticum ASSING spec. nov.

urn:lsid:zoobank.org:act:6681B4E6-3602-47F6-82BF-C1C9FD0E6A45

( Figs 104–105 )

Type material: Holotype ♂: “GR – Crete [5a], Orno Thriptis , SE Thripti , 1130 m, soil, 35°05'16"N, 25°52'58"E 25.XII.2017, V. Assing / Holotypus ♂ Cephennium thripticum sp. n. det. V. Assing 2018” ( cAss) . Paratypes: 1 ♂, 2 ♀♀: “ N35°05' E025°52', GR Ostkreta, Thripti 1000 m, Meybohm 11.3.2001 ” (cMey) .

Etymology: The specific epithet is an adjective derived from Thripti, the name of the mountain where this species is probably endemic.

Description: Body length 0.95–1.0 mm; width of pronotum 0.38 mm; width of elytra 0.42 mm. Coloration: body yellowish-red; legs, antennae, and maxillary palpi yellow. Eyes reduced, composed of approximately five ommatidia without pigmentation. Head, pronotum, and elytra without microsculpture. Pubescence very sparse on head and rather dense on pronotum and elytra, moderately long, suberect, pale, and directed predominantly mediad on head, posteriad on elytra and most of pronotum, obliquely postero-mediad in postero-lateral portions and at posterior margin of pronotum. Punctation of head and elytra extremely fine, barely noticeable at a magnification of 150 x, that of pronotum more distinct; median portion of head impunctate. Tibiae moderately club-shaped, dilated in distal two-thirds. Antenna 0.45 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 nearly twice 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/sulcus on either side.

♂: aedeagus 0.23 mm long; ventral process short, apically convex in ventral view; internal sac with sclerotized structures of distinctive shapes ( Figs 104–105 ).

Comparative notes: Cephennium thripticum is reliably distinguished from other Cretan congeners of the C. arcuatum group only by the shape and internal structures of the aedeagus.

Distribution and natural history: The type specimens were found in two geographically close localities in the Orno Thriptis in the extreme east of Crete at altitudes of 1000 and 1130 m. A female collected in the environs of Sfaka (near the coast north of Orno Thriptis) may belong to this species, too, but a male from this locality would be required to confirm this. The holotype was collected in a rocky slope with Quercus ilex by washing soil, the paratypes were sifted from litter.

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.