Ottistira, Pascoe, 1872

Kuschel, Guillermo, 2008, Curculionoidea (weevils) of New Caledonia and Vanuatu: Basal families and some Curculionidae, Mémoires du Muséum national d'Histoire naturelle 197, pp. 99-250 : 178-179

Genus OTTISTIRA Pascoe

Ottistira Pascoe, 1872: 440 . — Heller 1925: 57, 63, 89. — Lea 1930: 463. — Emden 1936: 235. — Emden 1944: 583.

Type species: O. bispinosa Pascoe.

REMARKS. — By using the keys to the genera of Ottistirini of Heller (1925) and Emden (1936, 1944), a specimen from Mt. Koghi, New Caledonia keys out to the genus Ottistira but in facies is just like Maleuterpes , except for femora and tibiae of the fore legs lacking teeth, and the Fijian genus Nesogenocis Lea (1930) . The genera Eutinophaea Pascoe , Ottistira Pascoe , Maleuterpes Blackburn , Ittostira Heller and Nesogenocis Lea , and porobably others, are defined, if not just on one sex, on rather unreliable external characters.

DISTRIBUTION. — New Guinea, Indonesia, New Caledonia.

ETYMOLOGY. — The derivation of ‘Ottistíra’ is uncertain, probably from the Greek ‘hótti’ (= hóti) for ‘because of’, and ‘steira’ for ‘ships bow’.