Serica jaroslavi Ahrens, Fabrizi & Liu 2022, new species
Creators: name: Ahrens, Dirk
name: Fabrizi, Silvia
name: Bai, Ming
name: Liu, Wangang
Publisher: name: Zenodo
Year: 2022
Subjects: Biodiversity
Taxonomy
Animalia
Arthropoda
Insecta
Coleoptera
Melolonthidae
Serica
Serica jaroslavi

description: Serica jaroslavi Ahrens, Fabrizi & Liu, new species
Figures 10E–H, 24
Type material examined. Holotype: ♂ “ China, SW Zhejiang, 12.V.-5.VI. Fangyangshan, Huangmao Jian 27°53’N 119°11’E, 1500-1850m Jaroslav Turna leg., 2008” (ZFMK).
Description of the holotype. Length: 7.5 mm, length of elytra: 6.0 mm, width: 4.1 mm. Body elongate, dark brown, dull, partly with greenish toment, legs reddish brown, elytra yellow brown with dark spots, in punctures lighter, antenna yellow; dorsal surface almost glabrous except a single and short, white adpressed setae on pronotum and elytra.
Labroclypeus subtrapezoidal, little wider than long, widest at base, lateral margins weakly convex and convergent anteriorly, anterior angles weakly convex; anterior margin widely shallowly emarginate medially; margins moderately reflexed; surface flat and moderately shiny, finely and densely punctate, partly punctures fusing to transverse wrinkles, with numerous erect setae; frontoclypeal suture finely incised, weakly curved and slightly elevated; smooth area anterior to eye small and convex, as wide as long; ocular canthus short and slender (1/4 of ocular diameter), impunctate, with a short terminal seta. Frons completely dull and flat, with fine and dense punctures, with numerous fine and short, erect setae. Eyes moderately large, ratio diameter/ interocular width: 0.61. Antenna with 9 antennomeres; club with three antennomeres, 1.3 times as long as remaining antennomeres combined and weakly reflexed. Mentum strongly elevated anteriorly, convex. Labrum strongly produced along middle, narrowly but deeply emarginate medially.
Pronotum narrow and subtrapezoidal, widest at base, lateral margins evenly and weakly convex and convergent anteriorly; anterior angles weakly produced and sharply pointed; posterior angles blunt; anterior margin straight, with robust marginal line; surface densely and finely punctate, along midline narrowly impunctate in basal half, with short or minute, pale, adpressed setae in punctures; lateral margins sparsely setose; hypomeron carinate at base, weakly produced ventrally. Scutellum large, triangular, slightly impressed on each side, finely and densely punctate, with minute setae in punctures.
Elytra oval, widest at middle, striae finely impressed, finely and densely punctate; intervals flat, with fine, sparse punctures; with a few single, fine, short, white, adpressed setae on all intervals; epipleural edge fine, ending at moderately curved external apical angle of elytra, epipleura densely setose; apical margin narrowly membraneous, with a fine rime of minute microtrichomes (magnification 100x).
Ventral surface dull, finely and densely punctate, densely setose; metacoxa glabrous, except a few short lateral setae. Mesosternum between mesocoxae half as wide as the slender mesofemur. Ratio of length of metepisternum/ metacoxa: 1/ 1.38. Abdominal sternites with a transverse row of coarse punctures, each bearing a long seta, otherwise finely densely punctate and finely shortly setose at middle of sternites, laterally setae less dense; penultimate sternite at posterior margin with a wide membraneous rim being one quarter as long as sternite. Pygidium strongly convex and dull, dark, in punctures yellow, finely and densely punctate, smooth midline narrow, with sparse, moderately long setae.
Legs slender, shiny, pro- and mesofemur dull; femora with two longitudinal rows of setae, finely and sparsely punctate between the rows. Tarsi dorsally impunctate, ventrally with sparse short setae. Hind legs missing in holotype. Protibia moderately long, bidentate, external margin only weakly extended at middle; anterior claws asymmetrical, basal tooth of inner claw widened and concavely truncate at apex.
Aedeagus: Fig. 10E–G. Habitus: Fig. 10H. Female unknown.
Diagnosis. Serica jaroslavi Ahrens, Fabrizi & Liu, new species resembles somewhat the species of the Serica nigroguttata group, however, the dark preapical elytral spot is missing in this new species and the parameres are strongly different in length as often is the case in the subgenus Serica. From Serica albisetis Ahrens, 2005, which also possesses a basal lobe at the right paramere, Serica jaroslavi Ahrens, Fabrizi & Liu, new species differs also by the extremely short left paramere.
Etymology. The species is named (noun in singular genitive case) after its collector, Jaroslav Turna.
description: Published as part of Ahrens, Dirk, Fabrizi, Silvia, Bai, Ming & Liu, Wangang, 2022, Taxonomic revision of Serica MacLeay, 1819 (sensu lato) from China and adjacent areas (Coleoptera: Scarabaeidae: Melolonthinae: Sericini), with updates on Nipponoserica Nomura, 1972, pp. 1-83 in Zootaxa 5186 (1) on pages 44-45, DOI: 10.11646/zootaxa.5186.1.1, http://zenodo.org/record/7073769