Melanterius tasmaniensis ( Lea, 1909 )

Pinzón-Navarro, Sara V., Jennings, Debbie & Oberprieler, Rolf G., 2017, Host associations of Melanterius Erichson (Coleoptera: Curculionidae: Cleogonini), with a diagnosis and delimitation of the genus and description of five new species, Zootaxa 4298 (1), pp. 1-77 : 24

Melanterius tasmaniensis ( Lea, 1909) comb. et stat. n.

( Figs. 40–41 )

Melanteriosoma costatum var. tasmaniense Lea, 1909: 186

This species was described from Hobart and New Norfolk in Tasmania as a variety of M. costatus , but it differs from the latter in having not a short carina between the meso- and metacoxae but a small, somewhat compressed peg behind each mesocoxa, a more deeply concave, bowl-shaped mesoventral receptacle, completely separate procoxae (the anterior and posterior prosternal processes meeting between them; not so in M. costatus ) and only weakly costate interstriae 3 and 5. Its penis ( Fig. 41 ) also differs, the body being laterally rounded but slightly constricted in the apical quarter and both the apical and basal pairs of endophallic sclerites being larger and thicker. The species appears to have been known only from Tasmania in the past, but we here record it also from New South Wales and the A.C. T.

No hosts have been recorded for the species before. We collected it on seven Acacia species but mainly on A. dealbata (12 of 24 specimens), with A. polybotrya (6 specimens), A. decurrens (2), A. mearnsii (1), A. baileyana (1), A. deanii (1) and A. leucoclada (1) yielding far fewer ( Table 1). Its true host may be A. dealbata ( Table 2).

Figures

FIGURES 40 – 43. Dorsal view of habitus and aedeagi of Melanterius tasmaniensis (Lea) and M. porcatus Erichson. 40 – 41: M. tasmaniensis; 40: male (New South Wales, Vincentia); 41: aedeagus (A. C. T., Tidbinbilla Road). 42 – 43: M. porcatus; 42: male (Tasmania, Bathurst Harbour); 43: adeagus (Tasmania, Hobart).