Polynoncus erugatus Scholtz, 1990: 1425
Creators: name: Costa-Silva, Vinícius
name: Strümpher, Werner P.
name: Thyssen, Patricia J.
name: Vaz-de-Mello, Fernando Z.
Publisher: name: Zenodo
Year: 2024
Subjects: Biodiversity
Taxonomy
Animalia
Arthropoda
Insecta
Coleoptera
Trogidae
Polynoncus
Polynoncus erugatus

description: Polynoncus erugatus Scholtz, 1990
(Figures 26–27)
Polynoncus erugatus Scholtz, 1990: 1425 (original description); Gómez 2008: 515 (key to Argentinean species); Zidek 2013: 9 (checklist); Zidek 2017: 100 (checklist); Costa-Silva and Diéguez 2020: 271 (records from Argentina)
Type specimens examined. HOLOTYPE. (♀ IFML – Figure 26) First label [light brown, typeset]: ‘ ARGENTINA / TUCUMAN / El Infiernillo / 3.000 m / 3.I.1974 / Col. A. Willink’. Second label [white, aged, with red border, Clarke Scholtz’s handwriting]: ‘ Polynoncus / erugatus / C.H. Scholtz, 1988 / HOLOTYPE’. Third label [yellow, typeset]: ‘COLECCTION / INST. – FUND. M. LILLO / (4000) – S.M. TUCUMAN / TUCUMAN – ARGENTINA’. Forth label [white with black border, typeset]: ‘TCOL238’ (Figure 26c). Type locality: ‘ El Infiernillo’ [also called El abra del Infiernillo], Tucumán, Argentina.
PARATYPE (♀ IFML). First label [light brown, typeset]: ‘ ARGENTINA / TUCUMAN / El Infiernillo / 3.000 m / 3.I.1974 / Col. A. Willink’. Second label [white, aged, with red border]: ‘ Polynoncus / erugatus / C.H. Scholtz, 1988 [handwritten] / PARATYPE [red, typeset]’. Third label [yellow, typeset]: ‘COLECCTION / INST. – FUND. M. LILLO / (4000) – S.M. TUCUMAN / TUCUMAN – ARGENTINA’. Fourth label [white with black border, typeset]: ‘TCOL424 ’.
Differential diagnosis. In its external morphology, this species is very similar to P. pampeanus. However, P. erugatus can be distinguished from the latter by the presence of slightly raised, usually glabrous, basal pronotal tubercles which are obsolete/absent in P. pampeanus. For details of description, see Scholtz (1990, p. 1425).
Geographic distribution. This species appears to be restricted to the Cordillera Mountain range in north-western Argentina (Figure 27).
Examined non-type material (9 specimens). ARGENTINA: Catamarca, San Fernando del Valle de Catamarca, 540 m, April 2005, G. E Acuña leg. (1 CEMT). Salta, Capital, 15 January 1985, J.E. Barriga leg. (1♂ CVMD). Tucumán, El Infiernillo, 9 November 1995, G. Flores and S. Roig leg. (1♂ and 2♀ CEMT; 2♂ and 2♀ CVMD).
Remarks. Scholtz (1990) described Polynoncus erugatus from three female specimens (see Scholtz 1990, p. 1425) collected in ‘El Infiernillo – Tucuman’. During this study, we found several male specimens from the same locality with identical external morphology to that of the females of P. erugatus. However, with regards to the morphology of the male genitalia, there was no difference between males of what we consider to be P. erugatus and males of P. pampeanus. Despite the similarity of male genitalia, we will keep both species as valid until new data can confirm the possible synonymy.
description: Published as part of Costa-Silva, Vinícius, Strümpher, Werner P., Thyssen, Patricia J. & Vaz-de-Mello, Fernando Z., 2024, Taxonomic revision of the South American genus Polynoncus Burmeister, 1876 (Coleoptera: Scarabaeoidea: Trogidae), pp. 14-166 in Journal of Natural History 58 (1 - 4) on pages 70-71, DOI: 10.1080/00222933.2023.2260060, http://zenodo.org/record/10830771