Cnemidothrix barbipes (Saunders & Jekel)

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 : 165-166

Cnemidothrix barbipes (Saunders & Jekel)

Fig. 64

Isomerinthus barbipes Saunders & Jekel, 1855: 293 , pl. 15: 3.

Coptorhynchus barbipes – Lacordaire 1863: 153.

Cnemidothrix barbipes – Fairmaire 1881: 297. — Marshall 1956: 52.

Cnemidothrix meridionalis Paulian, 1945: 184 (as ssp. of penicilliger ) n. syn.

DESCRIPTION. — Sufficiently defined in the key to species. Two geographic variants are present, one from Futuna I., the other from Erromango I. southwards. The species was described in error from Lord Howe Island (159°5’E, 31°31’S) in the SW Pacific because of an obvious mixup of materials in an expedition of early times. The original diagnosis mentions specifically that the prothorax, elytral apex, femora and tibiae were reddish (rufescens), which makes it quite plain that the original specimens could have come only from Futuna I.

Apart from the colour of the integument, which is partly reddish brown in Futuna specimens, and entirely black in Erromango specimens, and from the colour of the long hairs, white or off-white in Futuna, and slightly or definitely reddish in Erromango, there is little else to separate the two populations.

Length: 6.0-8.0 mm.

TYPE MATERIAL . — No type specimens present. Identified non-type specimens with BPBM, NZAC .

MATERIAL EXAMINED. — Vanuatu: Erromango , [Tanna], Futuna. 29 specimens .

ETYMOLOGY. — The name ‘bárbipes’ refers to the barbed hind legs of this species, a feature equally appropriate for all other species of Vanuatu.

REMARKS. — Paulian (1945) was not aware that C. barbipes , listed from Lord Howe I. up to the time of writing his paper, was in fact from ‘Nouvelles-Hébrides’.