Zyrastilbus almorensis
Creators: name: Assing, Volker
Publisher: name: Zenodo
Year: 2017
Subjects: Biodiversity
Taxonomy
Animalia
Arthropoda
Insecta
Coleoptera
Staphylinidae
Zyrastilbus
Zyrastilbus almorensis

description: Zyrastilbus almorensis (CAMERON, 1939)
(Figs 6, 37–38,97, 149)
Zyras (Zyrastilbus) almorensis CAMERON, 1939: 546.
Type material examined: Syntypes: 1 ♀: “ Kumaon, India., H.G. Champion, 1937-9. / W. Almora Divn, Kumaon U.P., Augt, 1917, HGC / Z. almorensis Cam. Type / Type / Lomechusini, Zyras (Zyrastilbus) almorensis Cam., P. Hlaváč det. 2005” (BMNH); 1 ♀: “ W. Almora, Kumaon, India, H.G.C. / Genus ??, ohne mikroskop. Praeparat nicht zu bestimmen / Z. almorensis Cam. Cotype / M. Cameron. Bequest. B.M. 1955-147. / Syntype ” (BMNH).
Comment: The original description is based on an unspecified number of syntypes from “W. Almora: Kumaun” (CAMERON 1939). The two type specimens found in the collections of the BMNH are both females.
Redescription: Body length 4.5–5.0 mm; length of forebody 2.1–2.2 mm. Coloration (Figs 6, 37–38): head, pronotum, and abdomen blackish; elytra blackish-brown; legs with blackish-brown femora and dark-yellowish to yellowish-brown tibiae and tarsi; antennae blackish brown with antennomeres II and the base of III slightly paler and with antennomere XI dark-yellowish to reddish; maxillary palpi dark-brown to blackish-brown with the apical palpomere pale-yellowish.
Head (Fig. 37) weakly transverse, broadest across or behind eyes; punctation rather coarse, extremely dense, and somewhat umbilicate, rendering dorsal surface matt, except for a narrow longitudinal glossy patch in the middle (Fig. 97). Eyes distinctly shorter than distance from posterior margin of eye to posterior constriction of head in dorsal view. Antenna (Fig. 6) approximately 1.6 mm long and massive; antennomeres III of distinctly conical shape and less than twice as long as broad, IV–X of gradually increasing width and increasingly transverse, X approximately twice as broad as long, and XI slightly longer than the combined length of IX and X.
Pronotum (Fig. 37) approximately as long as broad and 1.17–1.18 times as broad as head, distinctly tapering posteriad; lateral margins straightly converging in posterior two-thirds in dorsal view; punctation (Fig. 149) very dense, rather coarse, but shallow, rendering dorsal surface matt, less coarse and less defined than that of head.
Elytra (Fig. 37) approximately 0.75 times as long as pronotum; punctation similar to that of pronotum. Hind wings present, but length not examined. Tarsi of moderate length; metatarsomere I slightly longer than the combined length of II and III.
Abdomen (Fig. 38) slightly broader than elytra; tergites III–V with moderately deep anterior impression; all tergites with similarly dense, moderately fine, distinct setiferous punctation on whole surface.
♀: posterior margins of tergite VIII and sternite VIII weakly concave in the middle; spermatheca similar to that of Zyras sensu strictu, i.e., with very long and thin proximal portion forming numerous coils.
Distribution: This species is currently known only from the type locality in Uttar Pradesh, North India.
description: Published as part of Assing, Volker, 2017, On the Lomechusini fauna of the East Palaearctic and Oriental regions, with a focus on the genera Orphnebius and Amaurodera (Coleoptera: Staphylinidae: Aleocharinae), pp. 63-106 in Beiträge Zur Entomologie = Contributions to Entomology 67 (1) on pages 88-89, DOI: 10.21248/contrib.entomol.67.1.063-106, http://zenodo.org/record/5742262