Xyloctonus subcostatus Eggers, 1939

Jordal, Bjarte H., 2024, Integrated taxonomy, biology and biogeography of the Afrotropical genus Xyloctonus (Coleoptera, Curculionidae, Scolytinae), Deutsche Entomologische Zeitschrift 71 (1), pp. 67-84 : 67

Xyloctonus subcostatus Eggers, 1939

Figs 26 , 27 , 29 , 30 , 32 , 33

Xyloctonus subcostatus Eggers, 1939: 15.

Xyloctonus striatus Eggers, 1939: 18, syn. nov.

Type material.

Holotype: Deutsch Ost Afrika [Tanzania], Bez. Tabora, Ngulu [-3.72, 32.46], vi. 1911, sammler W. Methner [USNM]. Paratypes of X. striatus : Mozambique, Sangadzé, Moulima [-17.4, 35.0], sur Acacia , 1928, P. Lesne [MNHN, NHMW].

Diagnosis.

Length 1.7-2.8 mm, 2.0 × as long as wide, colour brown; antennal club with two visible procurved sutures; male vertex with a simple pars stridens (Fig. 32 ); anterior margin of pronotum with two raised teeth; pronotum slightly narrower than elytra; elytral interstriae 9 curves above the posterior margin of elytra and continues to elytral suture; interstriae lightly punctured; scutellar shield broad, slightly impressed in middle, roughly punctured; elytral suture with bulgy locking mechanism; setae on lateral upper part of metaventrite bifid.

Distribution.

Mozambique, Tanzania, Sudan, Democratic Republic of the Congo (new country record) Guinea, Burkina Faso (new country record).

New records.

Burkina Faso, Comoe, Foret de Boulon, 270 m alt., 10.343, -4.510, 9.7.2006, F. Genier leg. [2, Genier coll.]; Democratic Republic of the Congo, Moba, 780 m alt., -7.030, 29.763, 01.10.1953, H. Bomans leg. [1, RMCA].

A specimen from the Democratic Republic of Congo [RMCA] was erroneously identified by Schedl as X. scolytoides .

Biology.

Collected from an Acacia ( Fabaceae ) branch (identified as X. striatus ). Two males were collected by a Malaise trap in Burkina Faso, in a dry bushland. The records from south-eastern parts of the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Sudan and Guinea are also from very dry forests below 1000 m altitude. Although present on one of Eggers ‘co-types’ (paratypes), the male pars stridens is here reported for the first time.

Comments.

Paratypes ( ‘co-types’) of X. striatus are identical to X. subcostatus , except elytral interstriae 9 is a little less separated from the elytral apex.

Figures

Figures 25 - 33. Dorsal, lateral and front view of holotype of X. pubifer (25, 28, 31); paratype of X. subcostatus (26, 29, 32); paratype of X. striatus (synonym of X. subcostatus) (27, 30, 33).