Anhammus (Aurivillius, 1922)

Vitali, Francesco & Chemin, Gerard, 2022, Taxonomic notes about the genus Nephelotus Pascoe, 1866 (Coleoptera, Cerambycidae, Lamiinae), Zootaxa 5141 (1), pp. 79-86 : 81

Anhammus vs. Nephelotus

While describing Nephelotus, Pascoe (1866) did not take into account Anhammus but considered both genera in the key to the Malayan Lamiinae ( Pascoe, 1866) . Nephelotus was keyed differently due to the “elytra not toothed at the shoulders”, while the original description expressly stated the opposite (“ Elytra sub-angustata, humeris in dentem productis ”). Gahan (1906) considered Nephelotus as a subgenus of Anhammus without providing any differential characters. Ritsema (1914) and Aurivillius (1922) considered these as separate genera, without stating any reasons. Finally, Breuning (1943) keyed both genera differently, due to the scape with closed ( Anhammus ) or open cicatrix ( Nephelotus ). Actually, the cicatrix is open in both genera.

Anhammus and Nephelotus are closely related taxa, as supported by the facts that Breuning (1982) described a Nephelotus species as member of Anhammus , by comparison of Mimonephelotes to Anhammus ( Breuning, 1970) and then, he renamed it as Mimanhammus ( Breuning, 1971) . The main differences are related to the body size (29–44 mm in Anhammus vs. 19–27 mm in Nephelotus ) and the different elytral pattern (numerous small points of yellowish pubescence forming two more or less conspicuous spots in Anhammus versus an irregular ochreous pattern and a large pre-median whitish spot in Nephelotus ).

The pronotal spines, long and acute in Anhammus , tend to disappear in Nephelotus but they are still present in some Philippine species, though always shorter than those of Anhammus . These differences suggest that Nephelotus should be considered as a subgenus of Anhammus , as Gahan (1906) supposed; nonetheless, we prefer to conserve the current taxonomy waiting for further analyses.