Siobla szechuanica Malaise 1934
Creators: name: Niu, Gengyun
name: Wei, Meicai
name: Taeger, Andreas
Publisher: name: Zenodo
Year: 2012
Subjects: Biodiversity
Taxonomy
Animalia
Arthropoda
Insecta
Hymenoptera
Tenthredinidae
Siobla
Siobla szechuanica

description: Siobla szechuanica Malaise, 1934
(Figs 1 c, 5c, 9g, 11d, 16c, 16k)
Siobla szechuanica Malaise, 1934: 20, Ƥ, type locality: Sichuan (China).
Redescription. Holotype: Ƥ. Length, 13 mm (Figs 1 c, 5c). Body metallic blue; head copper red with labrum and mandible bluish, palpi dark brown; antenna blue with 6th to 9th antennomeres white; anterior of fore femur and tibia, fore and middle tarsi and apical 2 or 3 hind tarsomeres dirty white, apical margin of each tarsomere of fore and middle tarsi dark brown. Wings lightly infuscated, stigma and veins black, cell C brown. Hairs on dorsum of head dark brown, hairs on thorax pale.
Punctures on clypeus, frons, most of inner orbit, postocellar area, and middle of postorbit dense; temple sparsely punctured, shiny (Fig. 17 c); middle and posterior of prescutum and anterior slope of mesoscutellum sparsely punctured, shiny; punctures on posterior slope of mesoscutellum dense and large, other parts of mesoscutum densely punctured; metascutellum coarsely punctured without interspaces; punctures on upper half of mesepisternum large and dense, on lower half small and uniform; mesepimeron microsculptured with upper margin densely punctured, most of metapleuron impunctate, shiny, except several large punctures on dorsal margin (Fig. 16c); 1st abdominal tergite polished, other tergites with transverse microsculpture (Fig. 16k).
Hairs on dorsum of head curved, 1.8 × transverse diameter of median ocellus. Anterior margin of clypeus truncate, very weakly incised in middle; malar space equal to transverse diameter of median ocellus; lower interocular distance 1.1 × eye height; anterior margin of supraantennal tubercle elevated, frons ridge fine; middle fovea large and broad, lateral fovea pit like; interocellar furrow and postocellar furrow narrow and shallow; postocellar area flat, lower than top of ocelli, with an obscure middle carina, about 1.3 × as broad as long; lateral furrows slightly curved outwards, divergent posteriorly; head behind eyes equal to eyes in length in dorsal view. Antenna 1.2 × head and thorax combined in length. Mesoscutellum elevated, anterior slope longer than posterior slope, with an fine middle carina on posterior slope; posttergite with an obtuse middle carina; mesepisternum elevated, ventral thorn absent. Metabasitarsus 3.8 × as long as broad, 0.8 × length of remaining 4 tarsomeres combined; hind inner tibial spur 0.6 × length of metabasitarsus. Lancet as in Fig. 9 g, apical and 4th to 6th serrulae as in Fig. 11 d.
Male: Unknown.
Specimens examined. Holotype: Ƥ, “ Kina 20/7 Szechuan (China)”; [red] “ Typus ”; “ Siobla szechuanica Type Malaise det.” (NRHS).
Distribution. China (Sichuan).
Remarks. Malaise recorded 30Ƥ and 4033 from Sichuan Prov., Sichuan–Tibet boundary, Myanmar –Yunnan Prov. frontiers in 1945. Authors checked the specimens kept in NHRS (12Ƥ 3333), SDEI (1Ƥ 13) and BNHM (6Ƥ 433) and confirmed that they are all S. vardalae. One female kept in HNHM is S. sinica.
This species was also reported from Nage, Mêdog [Motuo], Tibet by Xiao et al. (1988). This distribution record was followed by Xiao et al. (1992) and Wei (2004). We have not seen this specimen in Insect Collection of the Chinese academy of Forestry, thus we can not be sure about this identification. Wei et al. (2007) recorded it from Guizhou Province based on a male which is S. brevipilosa.
S. szechuanica is similar to S. rugosipropodea, and S. vardalae, see remarks there.
description: Published as part of Niu, Gengyun, Wei, Meicai & Taeger, Andreas, 2012, Revision of the Siobla metallica group (Hymenoptera: Tenthredinidae), pp. 1-49 in Zootaxa 3196 on pages 21-22, DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.280105