Hycleus pseudobrunnipes ( Kaszab, 1983 ) Bologna & Turco, 2007

Bologna, Marco A. & Turco, Federica, 2007, The Meloidae (Coleoptera) of the United Arab Emirates with an updated Arabian checklist, Zootaxa 1625 (1), pp. 1-33 : 23

Hycleus pseudobrunnipes ( Kaszab, 1983) n. comb.

Distribution. Recorded only from Saudi Arabia; new for the U.A.E. and Oman.

New records. Oman: Muscat, Ruwi , iii.1976, K. Guichardt coll. 1 ex. ( BMNH) .

U.A.E.: Abu Dhabi Emirate, Al Aïn, Al Bateen dunes, 18.iii.2000, M. Gillet coll. 2 exx. ( CB, C. Krejcik) .

Remarks. The affinities of this species have been erroneously interpreted by Kaszab (1983), who related it to H. brunnipes . In fact, H. pseudobrunnipes also has the mesosternum ( Fig. 18 ) of Mesogorbatus - type, but the male genitalia, never described before ( Fig. 19 ), have the same structure as that of the group of H. quatuordecimsignatus (as defined by Pardo Alcaide 1963, and by Ruiz 2004), with two aedeagus hooks, the distal one very small, instead of a single distal hook as in the group of H. brunnipes . The reduction in length and thickness of the ventral lobe of the claws, sets apart this species within the group; this claw reduction is common to H. gratiosus (in this species the reduction is extreme), whose position is uncertain because the male genitalia are unknown. Therefore the group of H. quatuordecimsignatus includes at least four Saharo-Arabian species (see also Ruiz 2004): two endemic to the Western Sahara, namely H. rungsi (Peyerimhoff, 1935) and H. saharicus (Chobaut, 1901) ; H. quatuordecimsignatus (Marseul, 1870) , widely distributed from Morocco to Egypt, Israel and Jordan; H. pseudobrunnipes ( Kaszab, 1983) endemic to the Arabian Peninsula.

Figures

FIGURES 16–21. Hycleus dunalis n. sp. (16–17) 16. right elytron; 17. mesosternal sclerites. Hycleus pseudobrunnipes (Kaszab) (18–19) 18. mesosternal sclerites; 19. male genitalia, lateral view. Hycleus fraudulentus n.sp. (20–21). 20. right elytron; 21. mesosternal sclerites. Scale bars = 0.5 mm.