Blapstinus tibialis Champion, 1885

Kamiński, Marcin Jan, Lumen, Ryan, Kanda, Kojun & Smith, Aaron Dennis, 2022, Phylogenetic status of some unique species representing Blapstinina Mulsant & Rey (Tenebrionidae: Blaptinae: Opatrini), and implications for continued study of the subtribe, Zootaxa 5093 (5), pp. 519-532 : 527-530

Blapstinus tibialis Champion, 1885

Studied material. SYNTYPE, male ( BMNH): “Zapote / Guatemala, / C. Champion ”, “Sp. figured”, „Godman-Salyin / Coll. Biol / Centr.-Amer.”, [circular label with red outline] “Type”, “ Blapstinus / tibialis, Ch. ” . Additional material: 3 males and 3 females ( Kojun Kanda private collection): “ USA: Texas: Hidalgo Co., Bentsen / Rio Grande Valley SP, off ground at / night, 40m, 26.1789°N 98.38366°W, / 16–17.vi.2014, KK14_075 K. / Kanda, K. T. Eldredge, J. M. Pflug ” .

Redescription. Length 5.5–7.0 mm, width 3.0– 3.5 mm. Body ( Fig. 2G ): black, reddish or brown, legs and antennomeres brown brown; dorsal and ventral surfaces shiny; ovate-oblong; widest at 2/3 of elytral length; weakly convex in lateral view; evenly covered with fine setae dorsally. Head: Epistoma broadly convex; punctures equal to diameter of an ommatidium (distributed less than single diameter apart); setae 2x length of intervals between punctures. Fronto-epistomal suture nearly invisible. Epistoma weakly emarginate. Antennae weakly clavate, with third antennomere twice longer than preceding one. Dorsal and ventral portions of eye roughly equal in size and shape. Prothorax: Widest at middle; apical margin evenly, broadly emarginate; apical angles rounded; lateral margin evenly rounded; basal width slightly narrower than humeri; basal margin bisinuate; dorsal surface broadly, evenly convex; all margins narrowly beaded, except obsolete at middle of anterior margin; disc finely punctate (punctures single diameter aparat). Hypomeron glabrous near margin, strongly rugulose medially. Intercoxal process of prosternum tongue-like, sparsely punctate, depressed in lateral view. Scutellar shield: Subtriangular, of equal width and length, finely punctate. Pterothorax: Elytra widest in 2/3 of its length; striae impressed; strial punctures shallow (2 diameters apart), punctures setose; intervals flat, finely punctate (3–4 diameters apart). Striae not joining prior humeral angle. Epipleura evenly and slightly narrowing towards apex. Metathoracic wings well developed. Metaventrite long, punctate; sparse setae present. Legs: Surfaces sparsely setose and finely punctate. Male protibia narrow, with a shallow, longitudinal cavity on inner side; female protibia lacking this feature. Male protarsus with tarsomeres 1–3 expanded, ventrally with golden, densely setose pads; female with subsequent segments of nearly equal width. Remaining leg parts not modified in both sexes. Abdominal ventrites: Finely punctate, scattered with setae; intercoxal process narrowly rounded; ventrite 5, in males, medially slightly concave, posterior margin evenly rounded. Aedeagus ( Fig. 1 ): Basal piece curved (lateral view); parameres straight basally, appearing as tridentate, length of lateral outgrowns nearly equal to total parameres length. Female terminalia ( Fig. 3E, F ): Ovipositor with paraprocts slightly longer than coxites. Paraproct does not shield valvifer and other lobes (directed basally). Valvifer wide and short; second lobe elongate; third one triangular (about 0.5 of length of third one); apical lobe rounded, situated dorsally, bearing reduced gonostylus on dorsal side. Proctiger covering nearly whole ovipositor. Vagina and bursa copulatrix without sclerites; bursa largely widened and curved. Spermatheca with narrow duct. Spiculum ventrale short.

Note. In his unpublished PhD dissertation, Davis (1970) recognized a new species, “ Blapstinus lobatus”, from Southern Texas. However, this species was never formally described and the name remains unavailable. This taxon also possesses tridentate parameres. Davis did not directly compare “B. lobatus” to types of B. tibialis , but instead based his diagnoses on a series of specimens that matched Champion’s description of B. tibialis . The authors of the present paper did not have access to specimens identified by Davis as “B. lobatus”, but were able to compare specimens from Southern Texas with tridentate parameters (see Additional Materials above) to images of syntypes of B. tibialis . No characters distinguishing these entities were found. Whether Davis’s species represents a sympatric species to B. tibialis in Southern Texas, or falls within morphological variation in B. tibialis requires further study and is outside the scope of this study. In any case, B. tibialis should be included in the fauna of the USA. A lectotype is not designated here in deference to a separate manuscript in preparation treating the concerned taxa.

Distribution. GUATEMALA, MEXICO, NICARAGUA ( Champion 1885); CARIBBEAN (Bousqet et al. 2018); USA (TX) (present paper).

Figures

FIGURE 1. Phylogeny of subtribe Blapstinina. Figured topology was recovered in maximum likelihood analysis using IQ- Tree. Ultrafast bootstrap values (1,000 replicates) (integers) and posterior probabilities (20 million generations) acquired in Bayesian analysis (decimals) are displayed in red. The three investigated Blapstinina species are displayed in blue. Male genitalia (1–4) of selected species (dorsal views) are illustrated on the left. Topologies of collapsed clades (‘remaining Opatrini’ & ‘Dendarini + Pedininini + Playtonotini’) are fully consistent with those presented in Lumen et al. (2020).

FIGURE 2. Morphology of studied Blapstinina species. Habitus photographs and diagnostic features. (A–C) Lodinus punctulatus comb. nov., (D–F) Lodinus araguae comb. nov., (G) Blapstinus tibialis, (H, I) Blapstinus grandis. (B) protarsus, (C) mesotarsus, (D) last 5 antennomeres, (I) apical tip of epipleura.

FIGURE 3. Morphology of female and male terminalia of selected Blapstinina species. (A–C) Lodinus punctulatus comb. nov., (D) Lodinus araguae comb. nov., (E, F) Blapstinus tibialis. (A, B, E) ovipositor, (C, F) genital tubes, (D) parameres. Abbreviations: ag—accessory gland, b—hooked baculus of c4, c1–c4—subsequent lobes of coxites, g—gonostylus, sp—sper- matheca, vag—vagina.