Cephennodes (Cephennodes) intricatus, Jałoszyński, Paweł, 2015

Jałoszyński, Paweł, 2015, The Cephenniini of China. VII. New species and new records of Cephennodes Reitter of Shaanxi, Gansu and Sichuan (Coleoptera: Staphylinidae: Scydmaeninae), Zootaxa 4033 (3), pp. 393-410 : 394-395

Cephennodes (Cephennodes) intricatus sp. n.

( Figs 1–3 , 11–12 )

Type material. Holotype: CHINA (Gansu Province): ♂, two labels: " CHINA: S-Gansu [ CH 12-13] / Mts. 36 km SE Longnan, / 33º13'03''N, 105º14'55''E, 2080 m, / N-slope with mixed pine and birch / forest, litter and mushrooms sifted, / 4.VIII.2012, leg. M. Schülke" [white, printed]; " CEPHENNODES (s. str.) / intricatus m. / det. P. Jałoszyński, '15 / HOLOTYPUS " [red, printed] (cMS).

Diagnosis. Body uniformly dark brown; elytra in male modified, with subapical circumsutural flattening covered with dense setae and apical impressions, which are suboval and asetose except for several long setae along posterior margins, area lateral to each impression bears thick setal brush directed mesally; aedeagus with very long and slender apical projection, which in lateral view is weakly curved dorsally at widely obtuse angle.

Description. Body of male ( Fig. 1 ) strongly convex, oval with feebly marked constriction between pronotum and elytra, uniformly dark brown with slightly lighter appendages, covered with light brown vestiture; BL 1.50 mm.

Head broadest at moderately large, strongly convex and coarsely faceted eyes, HL 0.20 mm, HW 0.35 mm; vertex and frons confluent, weakly convex; supraantennal tubercles weakly raised. Punctures on vertex and frons distinct and dense but small, separated by spaces subequal to diameters of punctures; setae sparse, short, suberect. Antennae long and slender, gradually thickened distally, AnL 0.85 mm, antennomeres I–VIII elongated, VII distinctly longer than VIII, antennomeres IX and X about as long as broad, XI about as long as IX–X together, 2.3× as long as broad, with blunt apex.

Pronotum semioval, strongly convex at middle and distinctly flattened near hind corners, broadest near middle; PL 0.50 mm, PW 0.65 mm. Anterior margin weakly arcuate; lateral margins strongly rounded in anterior half and very weakly in posterior third, posterior pronotal corners nearly right-angled; posterior margin shallowly bisinuate; lateral marginal carinae narrow and sharply demarcated from disc in posterior third; lateral antebasal pits shallow but distinct, each equally distant from posterior and lateral pronotal margin. Punctures fine and inconspicuous, much denser near each anterior pronotal corner, but even there shallow and small, not coarse. Setae on pronotal disc moderately long and sparse, suberect.

Elytra about as convex as pronotum, subrectangular, broadest distinctly in front of middle; EL 0.80 mm, EW 0.73 mm, EI 1.10; subhumeral lines non-carinate, each developed as sharp border between more convex humeral and less convex adsutural region, as long as only 0.28 EL and distinctly divergent caudad; basal fovea on each elytron located closer to lateral margin of mesoscutellum than to subhumeral line; elytral apices ( Figs 2–3 ) broadly rounded, each with subapical adsutural area flattened and surrounded by dense setae (forming single circumsutural flattening), apical part of each elytron sharply demarcated and impressed, impressed area oval in shape and asetose, with additional C-shaped ridge on its surface, area lateral to impression bears long setal brush directed mesally. Punctures on elytra slightly more distinct than those on pronotum but superficial and inconspicuous; setae shorter and denser than those on pronotum, nearly recumbent, with several longer suberect setae standing out on each elytron. Hind wings not studied.

Metaventrite without lateral impressions, convex.

Legs moderately long and slender; all tibiae nearly straight.

Aedeagus ( Figs 11–12 ) elongate, AeL 0.38 mm; capsular part o median lobe in ventral view symmetrical with asymmetrical assemblage of apical projections, of which dorsal component is strikingly long but in lateral view only slightly curved dorsally; parameres slender, each with two robust apical setae.

Female. Unknown.

Distribution. Central China: Gansu Province.

Etymology. The specific epithet intricatus refers to the complex modification of elytral apices.

Remarks. Within the excavatus species group most species have the dorsal apical projection of the aedeagus strongly curved dorsally and in lateral view visible as an apical hook. Only a few species have the dorsal projection weakly curved and not forming a hook. Besides C. intricatus , also C. hamatus , C. spinosus and C. uenoi have such a feebly curved projection, but each of them clearly differs from C. intricatus in external characters, including elytral modifications, and the shape and details of the aedeagus. Among other characters, Cephennodes intricatus is uniformly dark brown, while C. hamatus and C. spinosus have the head and pronotum nearly black and the elytra reddish-brown and C. uenoi has the head and pronotum very dark reddish-brown and elytra light reddish-brown. Moreover, males of C. hamatus and C. uenoi have a shallow posterolateral or lateral impression on each elytron covered with modified setae (lacking in C. intricatus ) and males of C. spinosus have the last visible abdominal sternite with a short posteromedian mucro (lacking in C. intricatus ). The most externally similar species, C. cryptointricatus s. n. described below, differs from C. intricatus in slightly shorter pronotum (the pronotal width is the same), antennomeres IX and X distinctly elongate (and not about as long as broad) and the aedeagus with strongly curved dorsal apical hook-like projection.

Figures

FIGURES 1 – 10. Dorsal habitus of holotype males (1, 4, 6, 9, 10), elytral apices in dorsal (2) and posterodorsal (3) views; head of male in dorsolateral view (5); abdomen of male in ventral (7) and lateral (8) views. Cephennodes (s. str.) intricatus sp. n. (1 – 3); Cephennodes (s. str.) monofoveatus sp. n. (4 – 5); Cephennodes (s. str.) pinnapes sp. n. (6 – 8); Cephennodes (s. str.) elegantissimus sp. n. (9); Cephennodes (s. str.) palpalis sp. n. (10). Abbreviations: ai, apical impression; csf, circumsutural flattening; csr, C-shaped ridge; sb, setal brush; s 3 – 8, abdominal sternite III – VIII.

FIGURES 11 – 18. Aedeagus in ventral (11, 13, 15, 17) and lateral (12, 14, 16, 18) views. Cephennodes (s. str.) intricatus sp. n. (11 – 12); Cephennodes (s. str.) cryptointricatus sp. n. (13 – 14); Cephennodes (s. str.) monofoveatus sp. n. (15 – 16); Cephennodes (s. str.) pinnapes sp. n. (17 – 18).