Phaenochilus metasternalis Miyatake 1970

Giorgi, José Adriano & Vandenberg, Natalia J., 2012, Review of the lady beetle genus Phaenochilus Weise (Coleoptera: Coccinellidae: Chilocorini) with description of a new species from Thailand that preys on cycad aulacaspis scale, Aulacaspis yasumatsui Takagi (Hemiptera: Sternorrhyncha:, Zootaxa 3478, pp. 239-255 : 250

4. Phaenochilus metasternalis Miyatake 1970

Phaenochilus metasternalis Miyatake 1970a: 50–52 (original description; male and female genitalia figured); Hoang 1981: 12, 15, 16 (first report from Vietnam); Ren Shunxiang et al. 2009: 138–139 (photos of dorsal habitus, male genitalia, abdominal postcoxal line).

Phaenochilus punctifrons: Chapin 1965b: 267 & Fig. 18A–G (female genitalia and morphological details figured) (misidentification).

Type material: Holotype, male ( CASC); paratypes (2 total), 1 male, 1 female ( CASC). Type locality: “ Ta Hau , Hainan Is., S. China.”

Remarks: This species can be distinguished from similarly colored congenerics by the broadly explanate elytral margins ( Figs 3, 26), the central part of the metasternum densely covered with long hairlike setae (may be lost through abrasion), and the male genitalia which has the basal lobe distinctly undulate on one side and constricted near base ( Fig. 12a).

A small black leather notebook associated with Chapin’s slide collection (USNM) documents that he performed a whole body dissection of a female of “ P. punctifrons ” from Java (Java, Feb. 1911, R.L.Woglum). Although we could not find the resulting slide mounted material which he designated “X-15,” the remaining specimens from Java, Buitenzorg (=Bogor), and Singapore in the series that Chapin studied all belong to P. metasternalis . Ren Shunxiang et al. (2009) report the presence of P. metasternalis in the Chinese provinces of Yunnan, Anhui, Guangdong, Guangxi, and Hainan. Hoang (1981) reports this species from Trung Quoc, Viet Nam. (See also “Remarks” section for P. ruficollis , below.)