Aristolebia Bates, 1892

Baehr, Martin & Reid, Chris A. M., 2017, On a Collection of Carabidae from Timor Leste, with Descriptions of Nine New Species (Insecta: Coleoptera, Carabidae), Records of the Australian Museum 69 (6), pp. 421-450 : 439

Aristolebia Bates, 1892

Aristolebia Bates, 1892 , Viaggio di Leonardo Fea in Birmania e regione vicine. XLIV. List of the Carabidae . Annali del Museo Civico di Storia Naturale de Genova 32: 428. Type species: Aristolebia quadridentata Bates, 1892 , by monotypy.

Diagnosis. Main diagnostic characters of the genus Aristolebia are: wide, depressed body; large, semicircular, laterally much protruded eye; semicircular pronotum without definite apical angles; angulate external angle of the elYtra; concave excision of the apex of the elytra; presence of two preapical excisions at the inner surface of the mesotibia in the male; apparently also the odd-shaped, very strongly sclerotized aedeagus and the likewise odd-shaped and comparatively very large genital ring; and wide, more or less triangular, asetose gonocoxite 2 of the female.

In many other characters Aristolebia is rather similar to the large genus Lebia Latreille, 1802 (sensu lato) which is certainly closely related.

The fourteen presently recorded species of the genus Aristolebia are distributed from southern India to China, the Philippines, Sumatra, Sulawesi, Flores, New Guinea, and northern Australia ( Csiki, 1932; Jedlicka, 1963; Darlington, 1968; Moore et al., 1987; Kabak, 2003; Baehr, 2004b; 2010d; 2011; 2015a; Lorenz, 2005; Kirschenhofer, 2012). Most species of this genus are only available in small numbers and some are even known just from the holotype, which deficiencY most probablY is caused bY the almost unrecorded habits of the species and, as a consequence, by the inadequate sampling methods employed. The new species described herein is likewise available only as the holotype. However, in view of the very characteristic colour patterns of pronotum and elytra in almost all species of Aristolebia and of the characteristicallY and rather differentlY shaped female gonocoxites (see Baehr. 2010; 2015a), it is considered reasonable to describe the new species on the basis of a single female.

The few records and the apparent difficulties in sampling of specimens suggest that the present distribution of the species, as well as the species diversity, are quite inadequately known, and that additional species may be detected in future within, but probably also outside of the hitherto recorded range of the genus.