Xenicotela binigricollis (Breuning, 1965) Xie & Barclay & Wang, 2023

Xie, Guanglin, Barclay, Maxwell V. L. & Wang, Wenkai, 2023, Review of the genus Xenicotela Bates, 1884 (Cerambycidae, Lamiinae, Lamiini), ZooKeys 1183, pp. 185-204 : 185

Xenicotela binigricollis (Breuning, 1965) comb. nov.

Fig. 7g, h

Monochamus binigricollis Breuning, 1965: 51; Rondon and Breuning 1970: 461; Lin and Tavakilian 2019: 310. Type locality: Pak Kading, Laos.

Type material examined.

Holotype, female (BPBM), Laos: Pak Kading, Paksane area, May, 1964, coll. J. A. Rondon.

Other material examined.

One female, Vietnam: Bac Kạn Province, National Park (LGBC).

Redescription.

Female. Body length 13.0 mm, humeral width 4.0 mm. Body mostly blackish brown, clothed with off-white, pale yellowish-brown to greyish-yellow and dark-brown pubescence. Head decorated with a dark-brown pubescent patch behind each upper eye lobe, a pair of homogeneous patches located at the base half of pronotum, widely separated anteriorly and indistinctly edged with pale-yellow pubescence on anterior and lateral sides. Antennae reddish brown; scape and pedicel densely clothed with greyish-yellow pubescence; base and extreme apex of antennomeres III-X; base and apical half of antennomere XI annulated with greyish-yellow pubescence; basal five segments fringed with sparse greyish-yellow setae ventrally. Scutellum completely clothed with greyish-yellow pubescence. Elytra dark brown, clothed with off-white, pale yellowish-brown to greyish-yellow and dark-brown pubescence forming a mottled pattern, distinctly dotted with irregular dark-brown spots; each elytron adorned with a large broad dark-brown median patch, slightly reduced near the suture. Tibiae decorated with a narrow subbasal and a wide apical annulus of greyish-yellow to pale-yellow pubescence.

Frons transverse, finely punctate; lower eye lobes slightly longer than genae. Antennae long, about 1.9 times as long as body; scape robust and short; base narrowed; apex distinctly constricted before cicatrix; antennomere III a little longer than antennomere IV, about 2.0 times as long as scape; antennomeres III-X slightly thickened at extreme apex. Pronotum transverse; lateral spine coniform, with pointed apex; disc dotted with fine punctures. Scutellum lingulate. Elytra elongate, about 2.3 times as long as width across humeri, with subparallel sides and rounded apices; punctures a little coarser and sparser than those on head and pronotum, sparser and even finer towards the apex; disc slightly raised at centre of basal third, followed by a weak central depression. Legs moderately long, femora slightly clavate, claws divaricate.

Male. Unknown.

Distribution.

Laos (Pak Kading), Vietnam (Tonkin).

Comments.

This species has the antennae with the scape robust and short and distinctly constricted before the cicatrix, basal five antennomeres fringed with sparse setae ventrally, and antennomeres III-XI annulated with light-coloured pubescence on base and apex; the pronotum with the lateral spine small, short and coniform, and the middle legs with the tibia without grooves. These characters are consistent with the genus Xenicotela .

This species is similar to X. distincta and X. griseomaculata , from which it differs in the lower eye lobe being longer than gena, the scutellum completely covered with light-coloured pubescence, and the base and the apex of elytra mostly clothed with light-coloured pubescence interspersed with small irregular dark-brown spots. In X. distincta , the lower eye lobe is about as long as gena, the scutellum is only clothed with the light-coloured pubescence on the edge and the elytra are not dotted with small irregular dark-brown spots. In X. griseomaculata , the lower eye lobe is shorter than gena, the scutellum is not clothed with light-coloured pubescence on the basal centre, and the base and apex of the elytra are mostly dark, adorned with light-coloured pubescent patches.

Wang (1998) incorrectly identified the specimens of X. distincta from Guizhou and Yunnan as this species on the basis of the main features of two black spots behind the upper eye lobes and at the base of pronotum respectively. In fact, X. binigricollis can be easy distinguished from X. distincta , as mentioned above. Consequently, it must be excluded from the fauna of China based on the information currently available.

Figures

Figure 7. Xenicotela spp. a-f Xenicotela convexicollis (Gressitt, 1942) g-h Xenicotela binigricollis (Breuning, 1965) comb. nov. a, c male, from Zhejiang (Tianmushan), China b, d female, from Zhejiang (Tianmushan), China e, f holotype (female) and labels g female, from Bac K ạn (Ba Be national park), Vietnam h holotype, female.