Cheilocolpus kentiae (Lea, 1925) Lea, 1925

Shaw, Josh Jenkins & Solodovnikov, Alexey, 2016, Systematic and biogeographic review of the Staphylinini rove beetles of Lord Howe Island with description of new species and taxonomic changes (Coleoptera, Staphylinidae), ZooKeys 638, pp. 1-25 : 3-5

Cheilocolpus kentiae (Lea, 1925) comb. n. Figures 1, 2C

Heterothops kentiae Lea, 1925

Material examined.

Type material. Paratypes: All 20 paratypes kept in three institutions are mounted on 9 cards (pins) in groups from 1 to 5 specimens, with each pin having the same label printed on green or plain paper: 'On Kentia . Lord Howe I. A.M. Lea’. Additionally, respective groups of specimens on each pin have the following labels: 2 females,' Heterothops kentiae Lea. Lea, Co-type[preprinted label with Lea’s handwriting] / Cotypes / Paratype [blue printed label] / K 188918 [printed white label]'; 2 females, 'Co-type [printed label] / Paratype [pale blue printed label] / K56145 / Paratype [dark blue printed label] / K 188917 [printed white label]'; 1 male [mounted on its back] and 1 female, ' Heterothops kentiae Lea. H288 Lea, Co-type [preprinted label with Lea’s handwriting] / Paratype [pale blue printed label] / A.H. Elston Collection [printed label] / K 188916' (all six specimens on three pins from AMS); 1 male, 1 female, ' Heterothops kentiae . Lea, Co-type [preprinted label with Lea’s handwriting] / Department of Zoology. Natural History Museum. University of Oslo. (ZMUN) [printed label] / Syntype. V.I. Gusarov rev. 2005 [two red printed labels]' (ZMUN); 3 males, 2 females, 'Summit of Mt. Gover, L.H.I. A.M. Lea / Heterothops kentiae Lea, Co-type [preprinted label with Lea’s handwriting] / Cotypus, Lea don. A. Lea [purple label in M. Bernhauer’s handwriting] / Chicago NHMus M. Bernhauer Collection [printed label]'; 1 male, 2 females, ' Heterothops kentiae Lea, Co-type [preprinted label with Lea’s handwriting] / Cotypus, Lea don. A. Lea [purple label in M. Bernhauer’s handwriting] / Chicago NHMus M. Bernhauer Collection [printed label]' (FMNH); 2 males on the same card, 'c/3079 / Heterothops kentiae Lea, Co-type [preprinted label with Lea’s handwriting]'; 2 specimens mounted on two separate cards but on the same pin, 'Lord Howe I., A.M. Lea / C 3199 / Heterothops kentiae Lea, Co-type’ (QM).

Additional material, all from Lord Howe Island, Australia. 5 specimens: Stevens Reserve, rotted log and bark litter with fungi, 23.v.1980, S. + J. Peck; 2 specimens, Intermediate Hill, Big Creek, malaise trap through tall forest, 18-30.v.1980, S. + J. Peck; 1 specimen, Intermediate Hill, Big Creek, litter under carrion baits, 30.x.1980, S. + J. Peck; 7 specimens, Far Flats, thatch palm litter with nuts, 21.v.1989, S. + J. Peck (ANIC); 9 specimens: Mount Gower, 650-882 m [various collection dates] (AMS); 1 specimen: Mount Lidgbird, leaf litter of Bird’s Nest Fern Asplenium goudeyi 1.5 m off ground, 21.x.2001, Ian Hutton (AMS).

Diagnosis.

Habitus as in Figure 1. Head as wide as, or wider than pronotum, black to dark brown with distinct microsculpture; infraorbital ridges short, far not reaching base of mandibles; postmandibular ridges well developed, extending towards gular sutures but not reaching them; postgena with scattered shallow punctures; eyes about a third of the size of the side of the head; antennomeres 1-3 yellow, 4-11 dark brown; distal antennomeres transverse; apical segment of labial and maxillary palpi aciculate. Pronotum dark brown with two punctures in each dorsal series and distinct microsculpture, hypomera without post-coxal process; elytra dark yellow, each elytron generally with posterior two thirds darkened; fully winged; legs yellow, tarsi with very long setae ventrally, protarsi with a few long white adhesive setae ventrally. Tergites III to V with anterior and posterior basal carinae; male sternite VIII without apical incision (unusual for most of Staphylininae); aedeagus with paramere; closely attached to, and apically protruding over, but median lobe and paramere still two distinctly separate entities, paramere apically rounded with several setae (Figure 2C).

Taxon discussion.

The original placement of Cheilocolpus kentiae in the genus Heterothops Stephens, 1829, like many other species of Australian Amblyopinina, was based on the aciculate last segment of maxillary palpi and resemblance in habitus. With such poorly justified generic identifications, Heterothops Stephens, 1829 was inflated to a genus of about 150 species from all over the world ( Coiffait 1978; Smetana 1971, 1988; Herman 2001; Solodovnikov and Schomann 2009). Heterothops is based on the European species Heterothops binotatus (Gravenhorst, 1802) and its generic limits when including better known Holarctic species only ( Smetana 1971; Coiffait 1978) are more clear. Holarctic Heterothops can be defined by the following character combination: long infraorbital ridges extending to base of mandibles; aciculate last segment of maxillary palps; pronotal hypomera without translucent post-coxal process; anterior tarsi dilated in both sexes; abdominal segments III-V with posterior basal carina connecting spiracles; and aedeagus with paramere entirely fused to median lobe so that both structures appear as one entity. Earlier this fusion was correctly recognized by Coiffait (1978) but misinterpreted as the complete loss of parameres by Smetana (1988).

With poorly studied global species diversity of ' Heterothops ', it is not clear how far this character combination holds when Neotropical or Oriental species are considered ( Heterothops is represented by one species in the Afrotropical region according to Solodovnikov and Schomann 2009). But, as far as the native Australian ' Heterothops ' are concerned, it is clear that they are not congeneric with the Holarctic ones. Although the Australian and Holarctic species share some characters from the above mentioned diagnostic combination, the former do not have extended infraorbital ridges and their aedeagi have very distinct median lobe and paramere. At the same time, Australian ' Heterothops ' share the same diagnostic character combination with the Chilean genus Cheilocolpus Solier, 1849, namely: infraorbital ridges poorly developed, short, never reaching the base of mandibles; apical segment of labial and maxillary palps aciculate, at base distinctly more narrow than apex of penultimate segment; pronotal hypomera without translucent post-coxal process; abdominal tergites III-V (or at least III) with anterior and posterior basal carinae, the latter connecting spiracles; paramere not fused with median lobe, distinct. Also, Cheilocolpus differ from Heterothops in habitus: the former (in dorsal view) have elongate more or less parallel-sided pronotum, while the latter have pronotum with sides narrowing anteriad.

The genus Cheilocolpus is based on Cheilocolpus pyrostoma (Solier, 1849) and, compared to other free living south temperate Amblyopinina, is relatively well monographed in a series of papers ( Coiffait and Sáiz 1966; Sáiz 1971). Its limits with other related Neotropical genera such as Rolla Blackwelder, 1952 or Philonthellus Bernhauer, 1939 are not clear and must be investigated more elaborately. However, the listed shared character states and remarkable habitus similarity between the Australian ' Heterothops ' species and smaller members of Cheilocolpus such as Cheilocolpus angustatus (Solier, 1849) from Chile, make it plausible to consider them congeneric. Such affinity is also biogeographically plausible in view of Gondwana-derived transantarctic connections between Australia and South America (e.g. Boger 2011). Even though we plan to move the main bulk of species of the Australian ' Heterothops ' to Cheilocolpus in the course of a phylogeny-based generic revision of Amblyopinina (Jenkins Shaw & Solodovnikov, in prep.), here we already do so for Heterothops kentiae (and one other species, see below). Nomenclatural priority of the generic name Cheilocolpus over Rolla or Philonthellus also encourages this transfer now even though a separate genus status of these genera with respect to each other may be reconsidered in the future.

Note on the type material.

In the original description of Heterothops kentiae , Lea (1925) mentioned that he and his wife collected multiple specimens at Mt. Gower on fallen fronds and on wet parts of the Kentia canterburyana palm trees. He also indicated a specimen with the number ‘I.12690’ as a ‘type’. Based on the information in the original description, all specimens examined here are paratypes, many of which were apparently distributed by Lea among colleagues. Even though we did not examine the holotype (specimen with ‘I.12690’) that apparently is kept in Lea’s collection at the South Australian Museum in Adelaide, identity of the paratypes is unambigous.