Clinterocera Motschulsky, 1858

Qiu, Jian-Yue & Xu, Hao, 2016, Taxonomy and natural history of the myrmecophilous genus Clinterocera Motschulsky, 1858 (Coleoptera: Scarabaeidae: Cetoniinae) from China and adjacent regions: definition of species group and revision of the C. discipennis species group, Zootaxa 4127 (1), pp. 81-104 : 84

Clinterocera Motschulsky, 1858

Clinterocera Motschulsky, 1858: 112 ; Harold 1869: 1339; Westwood 1873: 27; Schoch 1894: 225 (in index); Schoch 1896: 360 (in key); Schenkling 1921: 365 (catalog); Mao 1937: 1097; Medvedev 1964: 334; Krikken 1977: 311; Krikken 1984: 45; Kalinina 1989; Ma 1995: 163; Sakai 1997: 11; Sakai & Nagai 1998: 160; Krajčík 1999: 40; Fujioka 2001: 125; Smetana 2006: 299; Legrand & Chew Kea Foo 2010: 86; Krajčík 2011: 70; Krajčik 2012a: 74. Type species Cremastochilus scabrosa Motschulsky, 1854 .

Cholerastoma Mohnike, 1871: 315. Type species Cholerostoma spondylidea Mohnike, 1871 . Synonymized by Westwood 1874: 66.

Callynomes Westwood, 1873: 26 (nec Mohnike 1873: 241); Schoch 1894: 218 (in key), 225 (in index); Schoch 1896: 360 (in key); Heller 1897: 177 (key); Schenkling 1921: 364 (catalog); Niijima & Kinoshita 1923: 184; Mao 1937: 1096; Paulian 1961: 9. Type species Callynomes vollenhovii Westwood, 1873 . Synonymized by Medvedev 1964: 334.

Callyomenes (sic!) Westwood: Schoch 1895: 131 (in key), 133.

Callinomes (sic!) Westwood: Arrow 1910: 215; Paulian 1961: 9; Kurosawa 1973: 109.

Diagnosis. A combination of the following characters is diagnostic for the genus Clinterocera: Antennal scapus strongly expanded, subspatulate ( Figs. 1–2 ); clypeus anterior margin reflexed; anterior part of prementum strongly expanded, scutellate ( Fig. 3 ); terminal spiracule convex ( Figs. 4–5 ); tarsi with 4 tarsomeres ( Figs. 8–9 ).

Redescription. General: Body 9.0–26.0 mm long, 3.5 mm wide, subelliptical; usually black, dark gray, red, orange, orange-red; usually with setiferous punctures. Some species with white, yellow, gray, or khaki tomentum on dorsal and/or ventral surface. Head: Clypeus anterior margin reflexed; clypeolateral area inclined downwards; anterior margin arcuate. Antenna with 10 antennomeres; scapus strongly expanded, subspatulate ( Figs. 1–2 ); club with 3 antennomeres. Anterior part of prementum strongly expanded, scutellate ( Fig. 3 ); exactly mirrored with the anterior margin of clypeus, enveloping labial palpus and maxillae. Maxillae strongly sclerotized; galea unciform and lacinia knife-like. Gula narrow. Dorsal surface: Pronotum subcircular; scutellum triangular; elytra flat, widest at the humeral umbone, with maculae, tomentum, or costae in some species; terminal spiracle more or less convex ( Figs. 4–5 ), visible from above in some species ( Fig. 4 ). Ventral surface: Discal portion of metasternum flat with a shallow longitudinal groove in the middle; mesometasternal process nearly absent. Pygidium: Subelliptical, glossy or clad with tomentum. Leg: Thin and simple; protibia with inferior ridge; tarsi with 4 tarsomeres.

Sexual dimorphism. Male and female usually have similar body size, but female larger than male in C. trimaculata . In most species, protibia with the apical tooth of inferior ridge long and curved downwards in male ( Fig. 6 ), while short and extended distad in female ( Fig. 7 ); abdomen with a groove on abdominal sternites 3–5 in male, while convex in female. In the C. jucunda species group, the tooth on the outer margin of protibia is smaller in the male.

Distribution. Palaearctic and Oriental Regions.

Nomenclature. The date of two publications must be emphasized here. According to Griffin (1936), the year printed on title page of Motschulsky’s Etudes entomologiques Volume 6 is 1857, but the actual date is 24.IV.1858. Krikken (1977) indicated that Westwood’s Thesaurus Entomologicus Oxoniensis was published in four parts with different date. The part I including pages 1–56 and plates 1–10 published in 1873, other parts were published in 1874. According to the Article 21.4 and 21.5 (International Commission on Zoological Nomenclature 1999), the date of genera Clinterocera and Callynomes should be cited as 1858 and 1873 respectively.

Remarks. There are 11 genera in the subtribe Cremastocheilina . Most of them distributed in the New World, with only two occur in Asia: Clinterocera and Platysodes Westwood, 1873 ( Krikken 1984; Krajčík 1999). With the exception of Clinterocera and Cremastocheilus Knoch, 1801 all genera in this subtribe have very few species ( Cazier 1938; Howden 1971; Krikken 1976; Qiu et al. 2015). Cremastocheilus includes more than 40 species, and the behavior and morphology have been studied in some detail ( Krikken 1982b; Alpert 1994; Mynhardt & Wenzel 2010; Krajčík 2012b). The shape and sculpture of the pronotum are variable and are the important characters for diagnosing species, while those in Clinterocera are unmodified. Although the male genitalia resemble those of Cremastocheilus , Clinterocera is considered most closely related to Lissomelas Bates, 1889 and Genuchinus Westwood, 1873 , since they share the similar external morphological features as presented in Cazier (1938) and other six genera see Howden (1971) and Krikken (1976, 1981). However, Clinterocera can be clearly differentiated from other Cremastocheilina species by the tarsi with four tarsomeres (with the exception of Cremastocheilus lengi Cazier, 1938 ), the others having the full number of five tarsomeres.

Figures

FIGURES 1 – 9. Characters of Clinterocera. 1, Antennal scapus, ventral surface; 2, antennal scapus, dorsal surface; 3, permentum; 4, spiracla, propygidium, and pygidium in C. jucunda species group; 5, spiracla, propygidium, and pygidium in C. scabrosa and C. discipennis species groups; 6, male protibia; 7, female protibia; 8, tarsi in C. discipennis species group; 9, tarsi in some of the C. jucunda species group.