Pixodarus Fairmaire, 1887

Bjornstad, Anders, Grobbelaar, Elizabeth & Perissinotto, Renzo, 2016, Review of Afraustraloderesrassei Bouyer, 2012: description of its female and a new species of Pixodarus Fairmaire, 1887 (Coleoptera, Cerambycidae, Prioninae), ZooKeys 558, pp. 77-93 : 81-82

Taxon classification Animalia Coleoptera Cerambycidae

Genus Pixodarus Fairmaire, 1887

Type species.

Hoplideres nyassae Bates, 1878

In their revision of the African and Madagascan Hopliderini (then referred to as subtribe Hopliderina), Quentin and Villiers (1972) cautioned strongly in their preamble about treating this group carefully: "due to the extreme variability of a number of characters" (l.c. p. 258). As examples of this extreme variability, they listed characters like the longitudinal furrow of the head, the length and number of spines on the antennae and antennomeres, the shape, sculpture and number of lateral spines on the pronotum, the spines and denticulation of the humeral and posthumeral margins of the elytra, and the pubescence on the ventral surface and tibiae.

In spite of these cautionary remarks, Quentin and Villiers (1972) described a new species of Pixodarus , Pixodarus exasperatus , based on very subtle characters. These included the raised parts of the pronotal vermiculations being glossy or not, variations in shades of reddish-brown to black in the colour of the elytra, as well as small differences in elytral length/width ratios.

Pixodarus nyassae is known from RSA and Mozambique northwards to Zimbabwe and Malawi, while Pixodarus exasperatus occurs in Tanzania, southern Kenya and the eastern part of the Democratic Republic of Congo ( Quentin and Villiers 1972). During the course of this study, the authors have examined a number of specimens from RSA and Mozambique, as well as from Tanzania. We find great variation in all diagnostic characters mentioned both in the southern and the northern populations, and these variations strongly overlap. We therefore endorse the earlier proposal of Santos Ferreira (1980) to synonymize Pixodarus exasperatus with Pixodarus nyassae .

On the other hand, the female erroneously included in the description of Afraustraloderes rassei by Bouyer (2012) represents a new species of Pixodarus and, together with the recently obtained male, is described as a new species below.