Oedichirus cooki, Rougemont, 2018

Rougemont, Guillaume de, 2018, The genus Oedichirus in New Caledonia (Staphylinidae: Paederinae: Pinophilini), Linzer biologische Beiträge 50 (1), pp. 537-586 : 545-546

Oedichirus cooki nov. sp. (Figs 12)

Material studied: ♂ Holotype: NEW CALEDONIA: Prov. Nord, Mt. Panié , II♀16♀93, 20º23’S 164º45’E, 320m, leg. Platnick, Raven & Harvey, wet forest litter ♀ HOLOTYPE Oedichirus cooki Des. 2016 G. de Rougemont [ AMNH].

Additional material: 1♀: NEW CALEDONIA Touho TV tower, 30 January 2004, G. B. Monteith ♀ QM Berlesate 1114, 20º39’S x 165º13’E, rainforest, sieved litter ♀ Oedichirus cooki Rgmt. ♂ det. 2017 G. de Rougemont [ QM].

Description: length: ca. 10.2 mm; length of fore-body: 4.8; length of head: 1.18; breadth of head: 1.47; length of antenna: 2.63; length of pronotum: 1.75; breadth of pronotum: 1.45; length of elytron: 1.35; breadth of elytra: 1.45. Body entirely black; palpi, antennae and legs testaceous, knees strongly infuscate. Head strongly microsculptate, very finely coriaceous, appearing sericeous; pronotum entirely microsculptate, the reticulation coraser than that of head; microsculpture of elytra more feeble, abdominal tergites entirely strongly microsculptate, the sculpture consisting of transverse microstriae. Pubescence sparse, moderately long, pale, erect. Habitus: Fig. 12h.

Head strongly transverse; eyes large and protruberant; temples longer than eyes, gently rounded to base; post-ocular carina and groove situated on lateral margin, the latter merging anteriad with a narrow groove adjacent to inner margin of eye; puncturation sparse and very irregular, the punctures small, umbilicate and shallow. Pronotum very convex, behind anterior angles almost as broad as head, the sides gently rounded to base; lateral margins entirely bordered; puncturation coarse and dense, irregular but fairly homogeneous, not forming discal series apart from a pair of four punctures each near base enclosing a small impunctate area, the anterior continuation of the series merged with surrounding punctures. Elytra longer than broad, humeral angles completely obsolete, the sides evenly rounded to posterior angles; puncturation coarse and dense, not forming series, interstices almost everywhere narrower than diameter of punctures. Rows of keels and grooves on bases of tergites completely obsolete on all segments; puncturation fairly dense and coarse on tergites III-IV, sparser with a progressively large impunctate area on centre of tergites V and VI, sparser and finer on tergites VII-VIII.

Male: abdominal sternite VIII (Fig. 12s8) with characteristic asymmetrical outline of the posterior margin and a salient bluntly tipped elevation on the left side; aedoeagus: Figs. 12arl, av (inner sac everted and partially extruded in photograph).

Derivation of specific epithet: after Captain James Cook, who discovered the islands for Europe and named them in 1793.

The specimen from Touho TV tower is only tentatively assigned to O. cooki , because the elytra are a little shorter and broader and the abdominal puncturation somewhat coarser. Only the discovery of a corresponding male can establish its true status.