Cephennodes oblongopunctatus, Jaloszynski & Nomura, 2008

Jałoszyński, Paweł, 2017, Ant-like stone beetles on the roof of the world. Cephenniini of Nepal and Bhutan (Coleoptera, Staphylinidae, Scydmaeninae), Zootaxa 4349 (1), pp. 1-120 : 86-87

Cephennodes oblongopunctatus species group

This newly defined group comprises species that are externally unremarkable, lacking any male secondary sexual characters, all sharing an extremely similar and unique shape of the aedeagus, which is of a modified simonis form. In ventral view, the median lobe is drop-shaped but with its apical portion strongly elongate and forming a nearly rod-like projection, whose shape is crucial for species identification. The apical projection of median lobe in ventral view is broadly T-shaped, its apex has two sharply defined dorsolateral corners developed as subtriangular projections, the apical margin of apical projection is more or less oblique in relation to the long axis of the median lobe. Parameres asymmetrical, each with three setae in apical and subapical region. All species have also distinctly and densely punctate head, pronotum and elytra, and indistinctly delimited antennal club that appears as trimerous, as antennomeres VII and VIII are nearly as narrow as proximal ones, but their surface is similarly matte as that of IX–XI, not glossy.

This group comprises C. oblongopunctatus Jałoszyński & Nomura, 2008b ( Thailand) and eight species distributed in Nepal. Species in this group often differ markedly in external appearance, body length and proportions of body parts, but differences in the aedeagal structures are always small. Aedeagal structures crucial for identification are the shape of the apical portion of the median lobe in ventral view (apical rod-like portion with parallel sides, narrowing gradually or constricted in subapical region; apex truncate, rounded or pointed), and the shape of the apical projection in ventral view (especially its apical margin, which can be variously oblique in relation to the long axis of the median lobe, straight or concave). A combination of external and aedeagal structures define species; females can be identified only when collected together with males in the same spot and carefully compared with them.