Pygoluciola Wittmer, 1939

Lambkin, L. A. Ballantyne C., 2006, A Phylogenetic Reassessment Of The Rare S. E. Asian Firefly Genus Pygoluciola Wittmer (Coleoptera: Lampyridae: Luciolinae), Raffles Bulletin of Zoology 54 (1), pp. 21-48 : 22-24

Pygoluciola Wittmer, 1939

Pygoluciola Wittmer, 1939:21 .

Luciola (Pygoluciola) – McDermott, 1966: 115; Ballantyne, 1968: 119; Ballantyne & McLean, 1970: 233; Ballantyne & Lambkin, 2000: 82; Ballantyne & Lambkin, 2001: 363.

Type species. – Pygoluciola stylifer Wittmer, 1939 , monobasic ( RMNH) .

Redescription of genus. – Male. Body elongate slender, 2.9 – 3.3 times as long as wide.

Pronotum Width/length 1.6 – 2.0; 1/5 – 1/7 as long as whole body length; always wider across posterior 1 / 3 than anterior 1 / 3; median anterior margin gently rounded, or slightly medianly emarginate, scarcely projecting beyond anterolateral corners if at all; anterolateral corners defined, rounded and narrowly obtuse or angulate acute, and may project anteriorly beyond anteromedian margin; lateral margins diverging posteriorly along their length, sometimes with some slight sinuousity at mid point; posterolateral corners broadly rounded, acute, and projecting either a little beyond median posterior margin or not at all, and delimited from rest of posterior margin by shallow emarginations which do not follow the anterior margin of the elytral humeral angle; lateral margin near posterolateral corners not indented; lateral margin (viewed from beneath) with anterior ‘hypomeral’ area developed and distinct from the posterior area, which is flattened in posterior 2 / 3, slightly more widely so in posterior half than in anterior area, such that the dorsal and ventral surfaces are adpressed to each other in dried pinned specimens and closely approach in ‘wet’ preserved specimens; dorsal surface smooth, barely convex, except for depressed area of median sulcus and narrow depressed area running along posterior margin; lacking pronounced ridges running obliquely from posterolateral areas to median area of disc, convexity over the posterior margins of the eyes, and a conspicuous flattening of the dorsal surface in median posterior area; irregular small low tubercles present in posterolateral areas in four of five species; punctures small, shallow, fairly inconspicuous, some contiguous, some separated by their width.

Elytra punctation not conspicuously larger than pronotal punctation, not linear; apex not deflexed; with four barely elevated apunctate interstitial lines, delimited at their sides by punctures which are linear along the side of the interstitial line; epipleuron and sutural ridge extending to rounded apex, with neither thickened in apical half; preapical sutural ridge not downturned; lateral margins not strongly explanate; epipleuron only slightly expanded; elytra at least five times as long as wide, subparallel-sided or tapering posteriorly.

Head in dorsal view is moderately exposed in front of pronotum; vertex shallowly to moderately depressed; lacking posterolateral eye excavation; eyes moderately to widely separated above labrum; GHW 3 – 4.8 X SIW; labrum transverse (wider than long); antennal sockets separated by ASD up to twice but not three times ASW; frons vertex junction not defined; eyes moderately separated behind mouthparts ventrally. Mouthparts well developed, especially fleshy lobes of maxillae, and assumed functional; apical segment of labial palpi laterally flattened, with the longest, inner edge bearing a number of slender finger like projections which may differ from one palp to the other; apical segment of maxillary palpi ovoid, not much longer than wide, and as long as apical segment of labial palpi, with an acutely rounded tip. Antennae length two to three times GHW; 11 segmented, all segments elongate slender (at least three times as long as wide), simple, apical FS never conspicuously shortened or club like, no FS produced laterally or flattened.

Legs femora and tibiae straight, not swollen, not curved in three of five species; tibiae of all legs curved in P. guigliae and P. stylifer ; all basitarsi simple, not excavated on their inner margins. MFC absent.

Abdomen with six ventrites belonging to segments two – seven; (remnants of segment one may be represented by cuticularisation in the intersegmental membrane anterior to V2); posterior margin of V 3 and V4 not recurved. Light organs: occupying all of V 6 except sometimes for some irregular erosion along anterior margin; LO in V 7 occupying at least half the area of V 7, anterior margin often slightly emarginate and not reaching anterior margin of V 7; lateral and posterior margins of LO gently curved, posterior margin may be gently emarginate, no margins reaching to sides or posterior margin of V7; no area posterior to LO in V7 greatly expanded or swollen. Ventrite seven (V7): no hairy lobes or pointed projections along posterior margin of V7; posterolateral processes absent, (MPP in pinned specimens tends to be engulfed behind by the downturned apex of tergite 8); posterolateral corners rounded; dorsal face posterior to LO (i.e. MPP) lacking muscle attachments; no median longitudinal groove, carina or dimple; MPP longer than wide, or at least as wide as long, symmetrical, curving strongly dorsally (at about a 90º angle) towards its apex which may be truncate and expanded, or flattened and gently or strongly emarginate, and in dried pinned specimens engages against the downturned apex of tergite eight; if the apex of the MPP is truncate and expanded, the flat posterior surface makes an approximately 90º angle to the horizontal). Tergite seven: wider than long or about as wide as long, with strongly depressed lateral areas beneath which dorsoventral muscles attach, and an elevated rounded median area covering the anterior prolongation of tergite eight and the aedeagal complex; median posterior margin recurved. Tergite eight: elongate, narrower than tergite seven, if viewed from above is about twice as wide in anterior half as in posterior half (widest at point of lateral angulations), lateral margins narrowing posteriorly in posterior half, most of apex not visible from above, and strongly deflexed ventrally and in dried pinned specimens enveloping the MPP of V7 from behind (in freshly killed specimens preserved in ethanol these structures do not approach closely); anterior margin of tergite eight bifurcate into two elongate slender apically rounded projections; angulate margins at point where tergite eight narrows posteriorly may be slightly asymmetrical; narrowed apex of tergite eight may be entire or gently emarginate; ventral surface in posterior (narrowed) half lacking median longitudinal grooves, lateral ridges, depressed troughs, flanges or any asymmetrical projections; ventral surface in anterior half with a median longitudinal groove separating two thickened surfaces in P. wittmeri ; ventral surface in anterior half lacking such developments, and lacking longitudinal ridges, flanges lateral ridges in P. guigliae , P. kinabalua and P. stylifer .

Aedeagal sheath (not extracted in P. stylifer , P. hamulata ; significance of this structure not realised until Ballantyne, 1987a, b); about twice as long as wide, much narrower in anterior half; anterior half of sheath sternite symmetrical and very narrow, narrowed abruptly at about the mid point of its length, or slightly less; posterior half of sheath symmetrical, sheath sternite and tergite equally wide; tergite lacks swollen lateral protuberances but lateral margins of tergite may be visible very narrowly at sides of posterior half of V 9 (seen only in dried pinned specimens of P. kinabalua ); median anterior margin of tergite 9 evenly emarginate, lateral margins anteriorly prolonged at the sides of the sheath sternite and joining the narrowed anterior prolongation of this ventrite in two species, and visible from beneath; posterior margin of sternite narrowing gently, level with or projecting slightly posteriorly beyond tergite.

Aedeagus Length/Width 2.5 – 4.0; LL and ML symmetrical, basal piece and dorsal base of LL asymmetrical; basal piece in two narrow halves, not sitting symmetrically above ML, left half slightly more ventral than right; ML tapering to a rounded acute apex, shorter than LL, sometimes just longer than half the length of the aedeagus; LL visible to either side of ML when viewed from above or below, separate along almost all their length dorsally, inner dorsal margins always divergent at least in basal fourth, and often closely approximate in apical half; apical half of LL subequal in width, apices no wider than preceding half, and sometimes out-turned; LL lacking leaf like lobes on their outer (lateral) margins, bearing hairs along at least half of their outer margin.

Female macropterous, and assumed capable of flight; similar to male differing in these aspects: pronotum about twice as wide as long, with lateral margins diverging posteriorly, but median anterior margin often projecting beyond rounded obtuse anterolateral corner; head of winged female form, smaller than that of male; abdomen with eight visible ventrites. Light organ occupying the whole of V 6 only; V7 with accessory external developments (transverse ridge, lateral mounds) in two of five species; tergite seven with anteromedian mound in one of five species; V7 usually quite deeply emarginate across posterior margin, V8 narrower than V7, sides tapering posteriorly and median posterior margin slightly indented. Female genitalia (known from two species) with styli longer than wide, parallel sided and apically rounded, and visible beyond end of V8; coxites not well differentiated, partly sclerotised and lateral margins converging posteriorly; valvifers elongate, slender, well sclerotised and rod like, extending in front of coxites for about 7 / 10 of the total length of the complex.

Larva unknown.

Remarks. - Wittmer (1939) misinterpreted the abdominal segmentation and recorded seven ventrites. His third last segment, a light organ, is actually V 6, and he interpreted the light organ on V 7 as a separate segment surrounded at the sides and behind by the last abdominal sternite. This is one segment, V 7, only. Ballantyne (1968) briefly redescribed Luciola (Pygoluciola) from four species, two of which were known from three specimens only. There is inconsistency between that description and this because of the redefinition of abdominal segmentation by Ballantyne (1987a,b) (tergite seven there becomes tergite eight here; visible abdominal sternites are referred to as ventrites and given their actual segmentation number), and certain other characters which are redefined here (e.g. interstitial lines), and that redescription should be replaced by the current one. Ballantyne (1968) did not distinguish the curved legs on the holotype of P. stylifer , and Ballantyne & Lambkin (2001), without a re-examination, erroneously keyed P. stylifer using the character of straight tibiae. This is corrected below.