Cryptophagus alexagrestis Lyubarsky & Perkovsky

Lyubarsky, G. Yu. & Perkovsky, E. E., 2011, Third contribution on Rovno amber silken fungus beetles: a new Eocene species of Cryptophagus (Coleoptera, Clavicornia, Cryptophagidae), ZooKeys 130, pp. 255-261 : 256-257

Cryptophagus alexagrestis Lyubarsky & Perkovsky sp. n. Figs 12

Material.

Holotype, SIZK K-24572, Klesov, Rovno amber, Late Eocene. Syninclusion: Chironomidae . Sex of the holotype unknown.

Etymology.

From Alex, in honour of Prof. Alexandr Rasnitsyn, and “agrestis” from Latin ager for field, farm.

Description.

Body broadly elongate, slightly convex; head, pronotum, and elytra brown. Elytra slightly convex, covered with elevated pubescence.

Head transverse, of normal size, with hemispherical, somewhat coarsely facetted eyes, strongly and sparsely punctured. Antennae long, slender, with club reaching beyond base of pronotum, joints of flagellum elongate, 4th, 6th segment more than 1.5 times as long as broad, 5th 2 times as long as broad, 9th and 10th transverse, 11th obliquely oval, joints 9-11 equal in width.

Pronotum flat, not very strongly narrowed basally, distinctly transverse, barely 1.6 times broader than long, moderately not strongly and sparsely punctured (distance between punctures more than their diameter), an individual puncture less than the diameter of a facet. Pronotum without sublateral line, somewhat convex, sides narrowed basally and apically, with a single lateral tooth. Sides finely margined, anterior edge weakly sinuate. Callosity occupies at most one-seventh of side margin, with a small, elongate-oval patch of bare surface invisible from above; caudolateral corner obtuse angular, callosity without point. Lateral tooth far before middle of lateral margin. Posterior corners obtuse, base round, slightly sinuate, basal groove narrow.

Scutellum small, transverse. Elytra oval, humeral corners rounded, shoulders a little broader than maximum breadth of pronotum, 1.7 times as long as wide and 3.0 times as long as thorax, moderately convex, slightly flattened behind scutellum, with slightly rounded sides and a narrowly rounded apex, punctuation less strong and more sparse than that on pronotum.

Length of body 1.8 mm.

Remarks.

Cryptophagus alexagrestis sp. n.is most similar to the modern Cryptophagus laterangulus Reitter (Caucasus, Iraq, Iran, Turkmenistan, Kazakhstan), Cryptophagus pseudoschmidti Woodroffe (Eastern Europe, Siberia, Mongolia), Cryptophagus dilutus Reitter (Holarctic: North Africa, Europe, Caucasus, Middle Asia, Iran, Iraq, India, China, Siberia, North America), Cryptophagus skalitzkyi Reitter (Europe, Caucasus, Turkey, Iran, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Afghanistan, Pakistan, India, Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan, Eastern Siberia) with elevated elytral pubescence, bare surface of callosity not visible from above, 4th segment of antenna elongate, nearly 1.5 times as long as broad, lateral tooth far before middle of pronotum, small length of callosity (see Lyubarsky 2002). All mentioned modern species are widely distributed in steppe and desert zones, less common in the forest zone. Cryptophagus dilutus is common in the steppe and desert zones of Eurasia - in materials from Iraq, Iran, China, and Central Asia it is quite common. All mentioned species can be included in the key for identification of Cryptophagus (see Lyubarsky 2002, pp. 324-325, synthesis 17 and the following) with some changes, as shown below: