Stilicoderus turacus Assing 2013, nov.sp.
Creators: name: Assing, V.
Publisher: name: Zenodo
Year: 2013
Subjects: Biodiversity
Taxonomy
Animalia
Arthropoda
Insecta
Coleoptera
Staphylinidae
Stilicoderus
Stilicoderus turacus

description: Stilicoderus turacus nov.sp.
(Figs 16-21, Map 3)
Type material: Holotype: " India: Meghalaya #2b, West Garo Hills dist., Trail Tura - Tura Peak summit, 800 m, 14.X.2004, 25°30'12''N, 90°14'07''E / Leg. G. Cuccodoro, C. Carlton, R. Leschen & D. Erne / Holotypus Stilicoderus turacus sp.n. det. V. Assing 2013" (MHNG). Paratype: same data as holotype (cAss).
Etymology: The specific epithet is an adjective derived from the name of the mountain where the type locality is situated.
Description: Body length 5.3-5.8 mm; length of forebody 3.0- 3.1 mm. Coloration: forebody blackish; abdomen blackish-brown; legs reddish to blackish-brown; antennae brown.
Head (Fig. 16) weakly transverse, 1.02-1.04 times as broad as long, weakly dilated behind eyes; posterior angles broadly rounded; punctation very dense and relatively fine; interstices composed of narrow ridges, without microsculpture. Eyes large and bulging, nearly half as long as postocular region from posterior margin of eye to posterior constriction. Antenna 1.6-1.7 mm long; preapical antennomeres weakly transverse. Anterior margin of labrum concave, with five short teeth.
Pronotum (Fig. 16) approximately 1.05 times as long as broad and 0.95 times as broad as head, strongly convex in cross-section; anterior and posterior angles weakly marked; punctation extremely dense, moderately coarse, and granulose; whole surface matt, except for an indistinct, very narrow line in posterior half of midline.
Elytra (Fig. 16) nearly 0.95 times as long as pronotum and with marked humeral angles; surface distinctly more glossy than that of pronotum, with dense and granulose micropunctation, and with interspersed, moderately dense macropunctures. Hind wings fully developed. Tarsi rather short; metatarsomere I approximately as long as combined length of II and III.
Abdomen slightly narrower than elytra; punctation extremely fine and extremely dense; posterior margin of tergite VII with palisade fringe.
: sternite VII (Fig. 17) strongly transverse, posterior margin broadly concave, with numerous long marginal setae; sternite VIII (Fig. 18) distinctly transverse, with sparse and short pubescence, median portion with conspicuous longitudinal sculpture (Fig. 19), posterior excision broad and shallow; aedeagus (Figs 20-21) approximately 0.85 mm long; ventral process very slender and sinuate in lateral view; with pair of large, sclerotized, and apically acute latero-apical structures, and with stout and long dorsal plate.
Comparative notes: Both in external and the male sexual characters, S. turacus is most similar to S. variolosus COIFFAIT 1975, from which it differs by slightly larger eyes, the absence of a distinct impunctate midline of the pronotum, the much denser, granulose, and more pronounced micropunctation of the elytra, the less transverse male sternite VIII with a deeper posterior excision, and by the morphology of the aedeagus, particularly the much longer dorsal plate. The aedeagus of S. variolosus is illustrated by ROUGEMONT (1986a).
Distribution and natural history: The type locality is situated in Meghalaya, Northeast India (Map 3), at an altitude of 800 m. The specimens were found together with S. separandus.
description: Published as part of Assing, V., 2013, Three new species and new records of Stilicoderus and Stiliderus (Coleoptera: Staphylinidae: Paederinae), pp. 1571-1585 in Linzer biologische Beiträge 45 (2) on pages 1582-1584, DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.5303002