Cephennodes (Cephennodes) palpalis, 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 : 403-404

Cephennodes (Cephennodes) palpalis sp. n.

( Figs 10 , 21–22 )

Type material. Holotype: CHINA (Gansu Province): ♂, two labels: " CHINA: S-Gansu [ CH 12-17] / Min Shan, 38 km SSW Longnan, / 33º05'24''N, 104º45'13''E, 1500 m, / N-slope, macchia, litter and moss / sifted, 6.VIII.2012, leg. M. Schülke" [white, printed]; " CEPHENNODES (s. str.) / palpalis m. / det. P. Jałoszyński, '15 / HOLOTYPUS " [red, printed] (cMS).

Diagnosis. Maxillary palps strikingly long (longer than head), palpomere III broadest near apex and palpomere IV shorter than broad; metaventrite with deep postmesocoxal impressions; elytra in lateral view slightly flattened around suture in subapical region and then rapidly declining; aedeagus with drop-shaped median lobe and slender, triangular apical portion, subtriangular apical projection forming weakly curved apical hook.

Description. Body of male ( Fig. 10 ) moderately convex, oval with barely marked constriction between pronotum and elytra, light brown with slightly lighter appendages, covered with yellowish-brown vestiture. BL 1.05 mm.

Head broadest at moderately large but strongly convex and coarsely faceted eyes, HL 0.14 mm, HW 0.28 mm; vertex and frons confluent, weakly convex; supraantennal tubercles indistinct. Punctures on frons and vertex fine and dense but superficial and inconspicuous; setae short, sparse and suberect. Antennae moderately long, strongly and gradually broadening from antennomere VIII, AnL 0.60 mm, antennomeres I–II elongate, III slightly transverse, IV–VI each about as long as broad, VII elongate, VIII about as long as broad, IX–X slightly transverse, XI slightly longer than IX–X together, about 1.3× as long as broad, with pointed apex.

Pronotum semioval, convex at middle and slightly flattened near hind corners, broadest slightly in front of middle; PL 0.35 mm, PW 0.45 mm. Anterior margin arcuate; lateral margins strongly rounded in anterior half and nearly straight in posterior third, indistinctly convergent toward slightly obtuse-angled hind pronotal corners; posterior margin shallowly bisinuate; lateral carinae very narrow and indistinctly demarcated from disc; lateral antebasal pits shallow but distinct, each located indistinctly closer to posterior than lateral pronotal margin. Punctures inconspicuous, very fine and superficial, even those near anterior pronotal corners are very fine; setae moderately sparse and long, suberect.

Elytra about as convex as pronotum, oval, broadest near anterior third and strongly narrowing caudad; EL 0.56 mm, EW 0.48 mm, EI 1.18; subhumeral lines developed as fine grooves as long as 0.35 EL and distinctly divergent caudad; basal fovea on each elytron located slightly closer to lateral margin of mesoscutellum than to subhumeral line; elytral apices slightly modified, with circumsutural flattening in subapical region and then rapidly lowering caudad, rounded together. Punctures on elytra inconspicuous, superficial and fine; setae sparse, moderately long, suberect. Hind wings not studied.

Metaventrite with deep and large postmesocoxal impressions.

Legs moderately long and slender; pro- and mesotibiae recurved.

Aedeagus ( Figs 21–22 ) simonis form, AeL 0.24 mm; median lobe in ventral view drop-shaped, with narrowly subtriangular apical portion; apical projections short, subtriangular, dorsal projection weakly curved dorsally; parameres slender, each with three apical setae.

Female. Unknown.

Distribution. Central China: Gansu Province.

Etymology. The name palpalis refers to the unusual structure of maxillary palps in this species.

Remarks. The structure of maxillary palpomeres III and IV in this species is unique among Cephennodes . Typically, the palpomere III is elongate and broadest near distal third, narrowing slightly toward apex, and palpomere IV is elongate or about as long as broad, subconical with truncate apex. In C. palpalis the palpomere III is stout, broadest at apex, and palpomere IV is very broad and short, resembling that known in the ' Cephennomicrus group' of genera. However, all other characters (studied by low-pressure SEM in uncoated specimen) do not differ from those in Cephennodes , and also the aedeagus represents clearly a relatively weakly transformed simonis form, with asymmetrical, drop-shaped median lobe surrounded by asymmetrical parameres and with subtriangular assemblage of apical projections in which the dorsal projection forms the apical hook. The structure of the maxillary palp is an important character in the taxonomy of Scydmaeninae and such a deviation from 'normal' form within any genus of Cephenniini has not been known. This structure in C. palpalis certainly deserves attention, but I prefer to place this unusual species in Cephennodes s. str. (on the basis of its genital structures) than to establish a new genus-group name.

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 19 – 22. Aedeagus in ventral (19, 21) and lateral (20, 22) views. Cephennodes (s. str.) elegantissimus sp. n. (19 – 20); Cephennodes (s. str.) palpalis sp. n. (21 – 22).