Safrina jugularis Westwood 1863, new combination
Creators: name: Reid, C. A. M.
name: Beatson, M.
Publisher: name: Zenodo
Year: 2016
Subjects: Biodiversity
Taxonomy
Animalia
Arthropoda
Insecta
Coleoptera
Lucanidae
Safrina
Safrina jugularis

description: Safrina jugularis (Westwood, 1863) new combination.
(Figs 5, 14, 24, 33, 47, 48–49, 56, 69)
Rhyssonotus jugularis Westwood 1863: 429; Boileau 1913: 216; Moore & Cassis 1992: 16; Mizunuma & Nagai 1994: 206, plate 3
Material examined. Non-types (abbreviated localities only): Australian Capital Territory: Blundell's Creek (ANIC); 1.5 km N Grassy Creek, Boboyan Road (ANIC); Lee's Creek (AMS, ANIC); Lee's Spring (ANIC); 3 mi. N Mount Aggie (ANIC); Mount Blundells (AMS); Mount Franklin (ANIC); Picadilly Circus (ANIC); 4 km SE Smokers Gap (JB); Tidbinbilla (AMS); Uriarra Forest (ANIC); New South Wales: Badja State Forest (AMS); Brown Mountain (AMS); Clyde Mountain (JB, RDK); Deua National Park (AMS); Jenolan (SAM); Landers Creek Falls (RDK); Monga National Park (RDK); Monga State Forest (AMS); Mount Coricudgy (RDK); Mount Wilson (AMS, ANIC, RDK); Narabeen (MMM); Pilot Hill, Batlow (ANIC); 3 mi. SE Pilot Hill, Batlow (ANIC); Sawpit Creek (JB); Wadbilliga National Park (AMS); Yarrangobilly (ANIC); Victoria: no data (MMS, SAM); Black Spur (MMM); Buckland River (JB); Buxton (ANIC); Castella (RDK); Cobungra (JB); Emerald (BMNH); Ferntree Gully (ANIC); Healesville (MMM, ANIC); Kawarren, Otway Range (SAM); Macedon (BMNH, MMM, SAM); Mount Baw Baw (ANIC); Mount Beauty (ANIC); Mount Difficult (SAM); Mount Evelyn (MMM); Mount Howitt (MMM); Mount Macedon (AMS, ANIC); Mount St Leonard (RDK); Mount Wilson Training School (MMM); Nariel (MMM); Strathbogie (MMM); Tallarook (ANIC); Tanimbuk [Tonimbuk] (ANIC); Thomson River Gorge (ANIC); Toorango River Valley (ANIC); Upper Tanjil River (ANIC); Warburton district (ANIC); 30 km S Whitfield (ANIC).
Diagnosis. Male. Length 20−28 mm. Head, pronotum, elytra, and venter black or almost so, elytra often slightly paler, dorsum with faint green reflection; legs variable from black to reddish brown with femora darker; elytra rounded at sides; head with narrow genal lobes, posterior angles of genal lobe laterally prominent and angulate, anterior angles rounded or obtuse; mandibles usually with basal dorsal tooth, without pre-apical dorsal tooth; elytral disc smooth, without obvious ridges or striae, entirely dull and densely microsculptured in contrast to shiny first interval and extreme base.
Female. Length 19−26 mm; colour and shape as male, but more rounded; elytral disc smooth, with sparse small punctures; pregular swelling sharply convex and strongly arcuate; inner face of protibia with 1 or without teeth; first elytral interval convex and shiny, not microsculptured, in contrast to dull, densely microsculptured flat elytral disc; outer margin of upper surface of mandible with complete keel.
Description. Male. Length 20−28 mm. Head, pronotum, elytra, and venter black or almost so, elytra often slightly paler, dorsum with faint green reflection; legs variable from black to reddish brown with femora darker. Body elongate-ovate: pronotum narrower than elytra, broadest at or near hind angles, sides of elytra rounded.
Head: with short laterally projecting genal lobes (longer than broad), posterior angles of genal lobe laterally prominent and angulate, anterior angles rounded or obtuse, to anterior margin of head; head transverse, width 2.3−3.0x length; dorsum strongly punctured, with punctures clustered in grooves or pits and smooth elevated interspaces, not or faintly microreticulate; head longitudinally elevated medially, elevation usually anteriorly bituberculate with tubercles adjacent; anterior margin medially shallowly concave; dorsally visible part of mandibles 1.0−1.3x longer than head, almost symmetrical, apices almost truncate; mandibles with small elongate dorsal tubercle, 1/3 from base of outer edge, of variable size (reduced to a small swelling on outer ridge in 2 specimens), without additional tubercles distal to this, but outer edge keeled; mandibular preapical dorsal tubercle absent; middle of ventral inner edge with 1−4 fused or part-fused large teeth, apical part of these anteriorly angulate, before upturned apex; base of inner face of mandible with large acute ventral tubercle, dorsal tubercle absent; pregular swelling sharply convex and strongly arcuate, height> longitudinal length, with dense and coarse setose punctures on anterior face, often fewer on posterior.
Thorax: pronotum contracted anteriorly from posterolateral angles or slightly anterior to them; posterolateral angles variable, from rounded to acute angled (80°); lateral margins bluntly and irregularly crenulate; pronotal disc finely to strongly, sparsely punctured, with or without small pair of foveolate depressions anterior to middle, sides more strongly and closely punctured in lateral depressions and posterolateral angles, and punctures confluent in patches; pronotal disc shiny, but minutely and evenly microreticulate (note: many specimens with dull pronotal disc because of wear); scutellum approximately semicircular, usually closely and strongly punctured; elytra rounded at sides, broadest 1/3−1/2 from base; elytron with interval 1 strongly raised for almost 2/3 of length, otherwise surface smoothly convex, without ridges; elytral disc without striae, dull and densely microreticulate, in contrast to shiny, faintly microreticulate, base of elytra and elevated part of interval 1; elytra with sparse small punctures on disc, a row of large punctures or irregular pits at edge of interval 1 and a row of smaller punctures at inner margin of explanate border; base of elytra with 1-4 short deep elongate grooves; elytral sides explanate, width 1− 2x width of base of metatibia, with transverse grooves or wrinkles and densely microsculptured and dull, like disc; wing fully developed, sharply folded at apex of elytra; external margin of protibia with 2 large and 1−6 minor teeth; internal margin protibia with 2−6 prominent median teeth; metatibia with 0−1 small external teeth.
Abdomen: basal 3/4 of ventrites I −IV dull, microreticulate, finely punctured, at least II −IV with apical band of dense long golden setae and recumbent setae at base, bands sparse and more recumbent at sides of ventrites, apical ¼ of ventrites shiny and impunctate; setal bands denser and wider in specimens from southern New South Wales and Victoria, thinner and narrower in specimens from Blue Mountains, New South Wales (and with impunctate patches lateral to setal bands); at least apical half ventrite V with erect long golden setae; apex of ventrite V truncate or shallowly concave. Genitalia: phallobase almost glabrous, but with 2−3 widely spaced setae on apical half, medially unsclerotised on dorsal surface, less than apical quarter of venter less strongly sclerotised, dorsal surface strongly convex; parameres with conspicuous close setae, apices produced in lateral view; ventral sclerite of penis split along middle by hyaline strip; endophallus in repose tightly coiled, with 2−3 small loops.
Female. As male, except: length 19−26 mm; head narrower, width about 1.8x length, mandibles shorter, dorsally visible part slightly shorter than head; tubercles on anteromedian prominence often obscure or absent; mandible outer edge keeled, apex acute, inner edge with small teeth; sides of pronotum usually slightly more densely and strongly punctured, lateral margins with crenulations usually more convex; elytral sculpture similar to male; protibia internal margin with or without 1 small but prominent tooth; abdominal ventrites II −V without long golden setae, II −IV with minute recumbent setae, V with longer erect setae; apex ventrite V rounded; proctiger of ovipositor triangular with long apical spine.
Larva (based on 1 specimen, about 45 mm long when crudely straightened out, from Brindabella Range): inner edge of left mandible deeply excavated between apex and middle of mola; apex of antennomere 3 produced as a rounded lobe, almost reaching middle of antennomere 4, inner margin shallowly concave; antennomere 4 length to width ratio 2.2−2.3; mesocoxal stridulatory file sinuate at apex, with 31−33 small granules; metatrochanteral stridulatory file with about 16 transverse tubercles, not reaching apex of trochanter, which is rounded; metafemur with evenly curved broad lobe at apex; metatibiotarsus elongate, length to width ratio 4.0−4.5; raster with long lateral setae, narrowly glabrous median strip, and short posteriorly and inwardly directed spines on either side of midline.
Distribution and natural history. Safrina jugularis is fully winged and capable of flight. This is a frequently collected species of the tall, wet, sclerophyll and subalpine forest of mainland southeast Australia, from central New South Wales (Blue Mountains) south along the ranges to west-central Victoria (Grampians and Otway Range). The specimen from Narabeen, a coastal suburb of Sydney, is almost certainly mislabelled (the MMM collection has many locality label errors: C.A.M.R., personal observation). There is a published record for Mount Drummer in the extreme southeast of Australia (Moore & Cassis 1992). Larvae have been collected with adults in the Brindabella Range and in the Blue Mountains.
Specimens of Safrina jugularis show more wear than other species, with old breaks of mandibular tips and teeth on the protibiae, and heavily scratched heads and pronota. Adults may therefore be comparatively long lived.
Notes. The northernmost populations, in the Blue Mountains, are relatively isolated in small pockets of wetter forest. Males from these populations differ from southern males by having more protibial teeth on average, narrower bands of yellow setae and larger impunctate patches on the abdominal sternites (compare Figs. 48 and 49). The isolated westernmost population, in the Grampians, is represented by a single male in the material on hand. This specimen has the posterolateral angles of the pronotum relatively elevated but otherwise conforms to the species concept described above. There do not appear to be consistent genitalic or mandibular differences between the above populations therefore they are treated here as one species.
Boileau (1913), in a note overlooked by Moore & Cassis (1992), discovered that the holotype was a male, not a female, as described by Westwood (1863).
description: Published as part of Reid, C. A. M. & Beatson, M., 2016, Revision of the stag beetle genus Ryssonotus MacLeay (Coleoptera: Lucanidae), with descriptions of a new genus and three new species, pp. 1-39 in Zootaxa 4150 (1) on pages 29-31, DOI: 10.11646/zootaxa.4150.1.1, http://zenodo.org/record/272084