Siobla japonica Shinohara, Wei & Niu, sp. nov.
Creators: name: Shinohara, Akihiko
name: Wei, Meicai
name: Niu, Gengyun
Publisher: name: Zenodo
Year: 2013
Subjects: Biodiversity
Taxonomy
Animalia
Arthropoda
Insecta
Hymenoptera
Tenthredinidae
Siobla
Siobla japonica

description: Siobla japonica Shinohara, Wei & Niu, sp. nov.
(Figs 1 g–h, 2a–b, 5g –j, 6d, 7d, 8d, m, 9f–j)
urn:lsid:zoobank.org:act:9E9BA5FE-592C-4763-BCBC-C67F193D3327
Siobla pacifica: Takeuchi, 1952: 18. Not Smith (1874).
Siobla sturmii: Shinohara, 2000: 303; Katayama, 2000: 13; Shinohara, 2001: 285; Nagase, 2004: 1249 (in part); Naito et al., 2004: 57 (in part); Shinohara, 2005: 236. Not Klug (1817). Siobla sp. A: Katayama, 2000: 13; Katayama, 2004: 96.
Siobla sp. B: Katayama, 2000: 13; Katayama, 2004: 96.
Siobla sp. C: Katayama, 2000: 13; Katayama, 2004: 96.
Siobla villosa: Togashi, 2002a: 9. Not Malaise (1931a).
Description. Female. Holotype (Figs 1 g, 5g). Length 11.5 mm. Body black, large macula on dorsum of scape and apex of mandible reddish brown; broad posterior margin of pronotum, dorsum of abdominal terga 2 and 3 largely, center of tergum 10, and narrow apical margin of sheath dark yellow brown; legs black, anterior side of fore femur, apical half of anterior side of middle femur, fore and middle tibiae entirely and hind tarsus dark yellow brown, and basal 0.6 of hind tibia yellow white. Wings hyaline with weak brown tinge, vein C largely dark brown, stigma yellow brown, anal veins pale brown, other veins blackish brown. Hairs on dorsum of head and thorax brown, hairs on mesopleuron silver, setae on sheath brown.
Dorsum of head and hind orbit coarsely and densely punctured, interspaces between punctures on temple hardly recognizable, without distinct microsculpture; clypeus densely punctured, feebly shiny; punctuation on dorsum of thorax similar to head; anterior slope of mesoscutellum densely punctured with linear shiny interspaces, posterior slope of mesoscutellum extremely densely punctured; mesoscutellar appendage polished, shiny, lateral corners microsculptured; metascutellum densely and coarsely punctured, metapostnotum microsculptured in anterior half and polished in posterior half; upper half of mesepisternum coarsely and densely punctured, punctures on ventral half of mesepisternum sparse and shallow, feebly shiny, lower anterior corner with large impunctate patch; mesepimeron densely microsculptured, narrow anterior and posterior margins of lower half polished, shiny; dorsum of metepisternum minutely and densely punctured, ventral part very sparsely punctured, shiny; middle and posterior part of metepimeron impunctate, shiny, dorsum of metepimeron coarsely and densely punctured; abdominal tergum 1 strongly shiny, without distinct microsculpture, other terga very weakly microsculptured, terga 4–9 laterally shallowly and sparsely punctured; outer side of hind coxa minutely and shallowly punctured.
Hairs on temple about 1.6–1.8 × diameter of median ocellus, apex of hairs weakly curved; hairs on mesopleuron about 1.8 × diameter of median ocellus. Clypeus 2.3 × as broad as long, with anterior margin truncate; malar space 1.0 × diameter of median ocellus; lower interocular distance 1.3 × eye height (Fig. 9 h); supraantennal tubercle hardly elevated, merged to frons; frontal ridge absent; middle fovea round and broad, very shallow; lateral fovea smaller than lateral ocellus, quite deep; upper inner orbit weakly convex, not oblique toward frons; interocellar furrow narrow and shallow; postocellar furrows obscure; postocellar area weakly elevated anteriorly, lower than top of ocelli, with fine and low middle carina, about 1.8 × as broad as long; lateral furrows narrow and shallow, hardly curved, distinctly divergent backwards; distance between outer margins of lateral ocelli 1.2 × as long as OCL; temple 0.6 × length of eye in dorsal view (Fig. 9 f); occipital carina complete, marginal carina of postocellar area hardly higher than posterior carina of temple. Antenna (Fig. 9 j) longer than vein Sc+R of forewing, subapical antennomeres distinctly enlarged; pedicel slightly longer than broad, antennomere 3 1.9 × as long as antennomere 4, antennomere 7 1.4 × as long as broad. Middle furrow on pronotum shallow and weak; mesoscutellum roundly elevated, slightly higher than top of mesoscutum, without carina or acute apex; mesoscutellar appendage almost flat, without middle carina; mesepisternum roundly weakly elevated, ventral spur absent. Apex of hind tibia distinctly enlarged, about 1.2 × as broad as apical sheath in lateral view; hind inner tibial spur 0.4 × length of metabasitarsus and 1.5 × as long as apical breadth of hind tibia; metabasitarsus 5.4 × as long as broad, 1.2 × length of following 3 tarsomeres combined; pulvilli small, distance between basal two pulvilli 3 × length of second pulvillus. Hind wing with petiole of anal cell about 0.5 × length of cu-a. Ovipositor sheath 0.9 × length of middle tibia, apical sheath 1.3 × length of basal sheath (Fig. 9 i); lancet as in Fig. 6 d, middle serrulae as in Fig. 7 d,
Male. Paratype from Amazakehara. Length 9.5 mm (Figs 1 h, 5h). Colour and structure similar to female except as follows: Antenna entirely black; posterior pale margin of pronotum narrow; abdominal terga 2–4 largely yellow brown; malar space 0.3 × diameter of lateral ocellus; shortest distance between eyes as long as height of eye; temple about 0.45 × eye length in dorsal view (Fig. 9 g), lateral sides strongly narrowed behind eyes; metabasitarsus 4 × as long as broad; subgenital plate in male longer than broad, apical margin rounded; valviceps broad (Fig. 8 m); gonoforcep as Fig. 8 d, harpe 2.1 × as long as broad.
Etymology. The specific epithet refers to the country where the species occurs.
Distribution. Japan (Honshu).
Holotype (Figs 1 g, 5g): ♀, Awakura (Tenshokyo, 600m), Fujinomiya, Shizuoka Pref., 30. V. 1988, H. Ishikawa, NSMT-I-HYM 65904, genitalia slide N20131105C (NSMT). Paratypes: 674 specimens (227♀ and 447♂, see Appendix).
Variation. The length varies from 9.5 to 12.0 mm in the female and 7.5 to 11.0 mm in the male. In the female, the scape, pedicel and one or two basal flagellomeres are often marked with brown dorsally, the pale area along the posterior margin of the pronotum is sometimes very narrow, the hind tarsus is largely darkened in very dark specimens, and the abdominal terga 2 to 4 vary from entirely reddish brown to entirely black (Fig. 2 a). In the male, the antenna is always entirely black, the pale area along the posterior margin of the pronotum is often missing, the hind tarsus is largely darkened in very dark specimens, and the abdominal terga 2 to 6 vary from almost entirely reddish brown to entirely black (Fig. 2 b). Very dark specimens, with an entirely black thorax and abdomen, mainly occur on higher mountains in central Honshu. The ranges of some ratio variations are given in the key.
Remarks. This species is a member of S. sturmii group (Niu & Wei 2010). It is somewhat similar to S. xizangensis Xiao, Huang & Zhou, 1988, from Tibet, but differs from the latter in the temple much shorter than the eye in dorsal view, the tegula black, the fore and middle femora largely and the hind femur entirely black, the inner apical spur of the hind tibia 0.4 × length of the metabasitarsus and 1.5 × apical breadth of the hind tibia, the abdominal terga 2 and 3 feebly microsculptured, and the abdominal sterna 5–7 and apical 3 terga black. In S. xizangensis, the temple is clearly longer than the eye in dorsal view, the tegula is yellow brown, the entire fore and middle femora and basal half of the hind femur are yellow brown, the inner apical spur of the hind tibia is 0.3 × length of the metabasitarsus and 0.8 × apical breadth of the hind tibia, the abdominal terga 2 and 3 are polished, without any microsculpture, and the abdominal sterna 5–7 and apical 3 terga are yellow brown.
This is the commonest species of the genus in the lowlands of central Honshu and previous authors treated it as S. pacifica, S. sturmii, S. villosa, or unidentified species, as listed above. From the other two Japanese species of the S. sturmii group, i.e., S. sturmii and S. jucunda, S. japonica is easily distinguished by the entirely (male) or almost entirely (female) black antenna. Very dark specimens of S. takeuchii may have an almost entirely black antenna, but S. takeuchii is larger (11–15.5 mm in the female and 9.5–13 mm in the male), the apex of the hind coxa, trochanter, trochantellus and base of the hind femur are pale brown in the female, and in the male the hind femur is marked with reddish brown and the penis valve is elongate.
description: Published as part of Shinohara, Akihiko, Wei, Meicai & Niu, Gengyun, 2013, Revision of Siobla (Hymenoptera, Tenthredinidae) from Japan, pp. 1-40 in Zootaxa 3746 (1) on pages 14-17, DOI: 10.11646/zootaxa.3746.1.1, http://zenodo.org/record/285294