Paraneseuthia

Jałoszyński, Paweł, 2015, Notes on the systematic placement of Eutheia siamensis Franz (Coleoptera, Staphylinidae, Scydmaeninae), Zootaxa 4021 (3), pp. 493-498 : 496

Paraneseuthia sp.

( Figs 7–9 )

Material studied. Paratype of Euthia siemensis Franz : THAILAND (Nakhon Ratchasima Province): ♂, two original labels: "Sakaerat Exp. Stat. / Thailand,lg.Franz" [white, printed], " Euthia / siamensis m. / det.H.Franz / PARATYPUS " [yellow, handwritten and printed]; during the present study white printed label was added: " PARANESEUTHIA / sp. / det. P. Jałoszyński, 2015 " ( NHMW).

Remarks. Franz (1975) stated that the type series of Eutheia siamensis was composed of male and female; he illustrated the aedeagus of the holotype and apparently based the entire description on this specimen. As the abdomen of the paratype has been damaged during previous preparations, it is not possible to verify Franz's identification of the specimen's sex.

This specimen of Paraneseuthia is not only unusually elongate and slender, but also exceptionally small: BL 0.79 mm (pygidium excluded); HL 0.10 mm, HW 0.18 mm, AnL 0.33 mm; PL 0.21 mm, PW 0.23 mm; EL 0.48 mm, EW 0.33 mm, EI 1.46.

Although this species must remain undescribed until males have been found, it nevertheless is far more interesting than the holotype of Eutheia siamensis that belongs to Cephennomicrus . The latter genus is broadly distributed in the Oriental region and has already been recorded from Thailand ( Jałoszyński & Nomura 2008). Paraneseuthia , however, was not known in this part of south-eastern Asia, and this specimen represents the first evidence of the occurrence of Eutheiini in Thailand. Because of its puzzling morphological characters (e.g., the unique three-segmented maxillary palps), diversity of body shapes much greater than in any other genus of Eutheiini and intriguing distribution, Paraneseuthia attracted much attention. This genus was described from Fiji ( Franz 1986), then unexpectedly found in the Russian Far East ( Kurbatov 1990, 1991) and Japan ( Jałoszyński & Hoshina 2004; Jałoszyński 2006), later reported to be distributed also throughout Sundaland ( Jałoszyński 2010, 2014b), in New Guinea ( Jałoszyński 2008b, 2009b), as well as in eastern ( Jałoszyński 2011c) and northern Australia ( Jałoszyński 2013). The recent and again unexpected discovery of Paraneseuthia in northern India and, even more surprisingly, in Turkey ( Jałoszyński 2015) demonstrated that the distribution of this genus is still poorly known. The new record of an undescribed species from Thailand adds another important dot on the distribution map of Paraneseuthia ( Fig. 10 ).

Figures

FIGURE 10. Distribution of Paraneseuthia (including undescribed species; based on Jałoszyński (2015 )).

FIGURES 7 – 9. Paraneseuthia sp., paratype of Eutheia siamensis Franz. Dry-mounted specimen (7); SEM micrographs of head and prothorax (8) and pterothorax (9) in ventral view.