Silvanolomus Reitter, 1912

Halstead, David G. H., 2012, New species of Oryzaephilus and Silvanolomus from Socotra Island (Coleoptera: Silvanidae: Silvaninae), Acta Entomologica Musei Nationalis Pragae 52, pp. 223-231 : 228

Silvanolomus Reitter, 1912

Silvanolomus is a genus of small beetles found in tropical and subtropical regions of the Old World. The following seven species have been described: three from Australia, including Silvanolomus armatulus (Blackburn, 1891) , Silvanolomus crenicollis (Grouvelle, 1911) and Silvanolomus goughi Halstead, 1993 ; 1 from Sri Lanka, Silvanolomus denticollis (Reitter, 1876) ; one from India, Silvanolomus halsteadi Sengupta & Pal, 1996 ; one from Japan, Silvanolomus inermis (Reitter, 1876) and one from Africa, Silvanolomus pullus (Reitter, 1898) , the new one described below making a total of eight. The author has also seen a few additional new species from the Orient and Australia. These beetles have been collected on flower heads of various plants including cereals and wild grasses, they have been found quite commonly on heads of sorghum in Queensland, Australia, occasionally in association with stored products and often collected in light traps. Silvanolomus spp. usually have six obvious lateral teeth on each side of the pronotum but these may be very much reduced or virtually absent. Their eyes are large and prominent. The pronotum and elytra are usually transversely, moderately convex. The tarsi have 5 tarsomeres, the 3 rd produced in front to form a conspicuous lobe, the 4 th is very small. In general, because there are few useful external characters species identification is very difficult, however male genitalia are often valuable for species recognition. Secondary sexual characters have not been discovered and size rarely seems to be linked to sex. Further notes on the genus with descriptions and illustrations for some of the species are given in HALSTEAD (1993) and SENGUPTA & PAL (1996).