Levoecus, Marshall, 1956

Kuschel, Guillermo, 2008, Curculionoidea (weevils) of New Caledonia and Vanuatu: Basal families and some Curculionidae, Mémoires du Muséum national d'Histoire naturelle 197, pp. 99-250 : 167

Genus LEVOECUS Marshall

Levoecus Marshall, 1956: 11 , 14, 58.

Type species: L. spathoglottis Marshall.

DESCRIPTION. — Body not depress, rather strongly convex across and lengthwise. Head strigose. Eyes evenly convex. Rostrum with deep, uninterrupted sulcus across in right or obtuse angle, dorsally strongly compressed above scrobes, in lateral view continuous corsally, with steep apical declivity. Prementum with one pair of long setae and one or more pairs of short ones. Scrobes foveiform. Scape gradually thickening apicad; segment 1 of funicle slightly longer than 2. Prothorax rounded on sides, not compress in front of basal angles, granulate, impunctate. Scutellum concealed. Elytra elongate-oval, rounded on sides, 10- or 12-striate, with sparse granules on dorsal interstriae, usually not sexually dimorphic. Fore coxae contiguous or very slightly separate; meosternal process not broader than long. Hind tibiae lacking mucro in female.

Male: sternite 9 symmetrical, weakly pigmented; apodeme nearly 3/4 combined length of ventrites, slender throughout, strongly curved up at apex. Tegmen with ring complete but sides rather fine, lacking parameral lobes; apodeme nearly 1/3 as long again as pedon. Aedeagus, inclusive of apodemes, 1.3 x longer than combined length of ventrites, thus extending well into thoracic lumen, weakly pigmented; aedeagal body 3 x longer than wide, tapering very slightly from base to ostium, then sides curved in to blunt apex; internal sac relatively short, extending cephalad from aedeagal body base to apical 1/4 of apodemes, nearly all of exposed part pigmented with internal wall vestiture and with a firm flagelliform basal sclerite equalling length of pigmented area.

Female: sternite 8 as long as combined length of ventrites; apodeme slender. Ovipositor a little over 2/3 of combined length of ventrites; proximal hemisternites unpigmented, 4.5 x longer than distal ones; distal hemisternites weakly pigmented, with subapical styli, these twice as long as wide; vagina twice as long as ovipositor, with short bursa, 1/2 the length of spermatheca; spermatheca 0.18 of the length of ovipositor, widened conspicuously by thick duct and gland extension, then gradually thinning out to sharply pointed tip; duct heavily pigmented, 3 x as long as spermatheca, stiff, somewhat curled, uniformly thick, nearly as thick as apodeme of sternite 8; gland fusiform, a little longer than width of spermatheca across base.

DISTRIBUTION. — Fiji, Vanuatu.

HOSTPLANTS. — No information.

ETYMOLOGY. — The name ‘levóecus’ refers to the Fijian word ‘levu’ for land, as in Viti Levu (bush land) and Vanua Levu (big land), and ‘oecus’ comes from ‘oikos’, Greek for home.

REMARKS. — The given description of Levoecus applies to L. vanuatensis in relation to the remainder of the fauna dealt with in the present study. The genus is richly represented in Fiji with greatly differing species.