Leascydmus simplicicornis Lea, comb. n.
Creators: name: Jałoszyński, Paweł
Publisher: name: Zenodo
Year: 2014
Subjects: Biodiversity
Taxonomy
Animalia
Arthropoda
Insecta
Coleoptera
Staphylinidae
Leascydmus
Leascydmus simplicicornis

description: Leascydmus simplicicornis (Lea) comb. n.
(Figs. 46–50, 53–54, 194 a)
Scydmaenus simplicicornis Lea, 1910: 185.
Horaeomorphus simplicicornis (Lea); Franz, 1975: 149, Fig. 127.
Type material studied. Holotype: AUSTRALIA: ♂: seven labels (Fig. 47): " simplicicornis / Lea, Type / Geelong" [white, handwritten and printed], " simplicicornis / Lea TYPE / Geelong" [white, handwritten], "13295 / Scydmaenus / simplicicornis / Lea / Victoria / TYPE " [white, handwritten, " TYPE " on right margin in red], " Horaeomorphus / simplicicornis / (Lea) / det. H. Franz" [white, handwritten and printed], " SAMA Database / No. 25-037063" [white, printed], " SAMA Digital Image / 4. 9. 2013 " [green, printed and handwritten], " LEASCYDMUS / simplicicornis (Lea, 1910) / det. P. Jałoszyński, 2014 / HOLOTYPUS " [red, printed] (SAM). Additional material: ♀, "Forrest V.", leg. or coll. H. W. Davey (labeled as "Co-type"; see remarks below) (SAM).
Revised diagnosis. Male and female: body nearly black with yellowish-brown tarsi. Male: aedeagus in lateral view with apex slightly curved dorsally.
Redescription. Body of male strongly convex, elongate and slender, with long appendages, BL 2.58 mm; cuticle glossy, body nearly black, margins of elytra reddish, antennae and apices of tibiae brown, tarsi yellowishbrown, vestiture yellowish.
Head broadest at eyes, HL 0.48 mm, HW 0.53 mm; tempora longer than eyes, strongly curved posteromesally; vertex and frons confluent and evenly convex. Eyes small and weakly projecting laterally from the head silhouette, finely faceted. Punctures on head dorsum fine and sparse, separated by spaces 1.5– 2 x as wide as diameters of punctures; setae short, sparse and suberect. Antennae slender, AnL 1.75 mm; all antennomeres elongate, antennomere XI as long as IX–X together.
Pronotum in dorsal view approximately subquadrate with rounded sides, broadest near anterior third, PL 0.58 mm, PW 0.60 mm; anterior margin nearly straight; anterior corners obtuse and blunt; lateral margins rounded; posterior corners strongly obtuse and indistinctly marked; posterior margin nearly straight; pronotal base with shallow and indistinct transverse impression. Punctures on pronotal disc similar to those on frons and vertex; setae sparse, short and suberect, near posterior corners distinctly denser and thicker.
Elytra oval, more convex than pronotum, broadest slightly anterior to middle, EL 1.53 mm, EW 0.98 mm, EI 1.56; basal impressions absent; humeral denticles tiny but distinct; elytral apices separately rounded. Punctures on elytral disc fine but slightly more distinct than those on pronotum, separated by spaces 2– 3 x as wide as diameters of punctures; setae short, sparse and suberect to erect. Hind wings well developed, about twice as long as elytra.
Legs long and slender, without modifications; all tibiae broadest in proximal half.
Aedeagus (Figs. 49–50, 53–54) elongate, darkly sclerotized, AeL 0.75 mm, in ventral view apex of ventral wall subtriangular and apex of dorsal wall evenly narrowing; internal armature composed of a complicated set of elongate sclerites; parameres slender, with moderately long apical and subapical setae.
Female (Fig. 46). Similar to male; BL 2.58 mm; HL 0.45 mm, HW 0.53 mm, AnL 1.98 mm; PL 0.60 mm, PW 0.60 mm; EL 1.53 mm, EW 1.00 mm, EI 1.53.
Distribution (Fig. 194 a). South-eastern Australia (southern Victoria).
Remarks. Scydmaenus simplicicornis is represented in the SAM collection by two specimens (male and female), labeled as a type and co-type. The male bears the original handwritten label (Fig. 47) with the annotation " type ", and a female has printed labels and is marked as a co-type. Lea (1910) in his original descriptions mentioned only one, clearly male specimen and used the term " type " in reference to it. Therefore, in accordance with the ICZN, this male specimen was fixed as a holotype by original designation. The status of the female specimen as a syntype is clearly incorrect. Lea did not mention any specimens other than the male type, and although the collector's name (H. W. Davey) given in the original description appears on the female's label, the collecting locality is "Forrest V.", which may stand for the Forrest River valley in Western Australia, while the holotype male comes from Geelong, Victoria. It seems unlikely that the same species was collected in SE and WN Australia, by the same collector, and Lea studied both specimens but mentioned only Geelong. The female must be of a later origin; also the collecting site does not seem correct.
Lea (1910) mentioned that in the type "the abdomen is strongly notched at apex, the notch fringed with tiny pubescence". The male is partly disarticulated and the terminal abdominal segments are missing, probably destroyed or lost during a previous preparation; the specimen was not removed from the mounting card during the present study to avoid further damage. The holotype is accompanied by three specimens of ants and Lea (1910) mentioned that it was collected in a nest of Iridomyrmex nitidus.
description: Published as part of Jałoszyński, Paweł, 2014, ' The curse of Horaeomorphus ': taxonomy of misplaced Australian Cyrtoscydmini (Coleoptera: Staphylinidae: Scydmaeninae), pp. 1-76 in Zootaxa 3828 (1) on pages 22-23, DOI: 10.11646/zootaxa.3828.1.1, http://zenodo.org/record/286513