Serica mengsongana 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 mengsongana

description: Serica mengsongana Ahrens, Fabrizi & Liu, new species
Figures 4I–L, 21
Type material examined. Holotype: ♂ “ Mengsong, Menglongbanna, Yunnan, 27.IV.1958, 1600m, leg. Wang Shuyong /LW-172” (IZAS).
Description of the holotype. Length: 7.6 mm, elytral length: 5.5 mm, width: 4.2 mm. Body oblong, dark brown, dull, legs brown, antenna yellow, dorsal surface almost glabrous.
Labroclypeus narrow, subtrapezoidal, lateral margins straight and moderately convergent, producing a distinct angle with ocular canthus; anterior angles strongly rounded; anterior margin weakly sinuate medially, margins strongly reflexed; surface moderately shiny, flat, finely and densely punctate, with a few erect setae; frontoclypeal suture indistinct, curved and slightly elevated; ocular canthus moderately long and narrow (1/3 of ocular width), impunctate, with a short terminal seta. Frons with fine, moderately dense punctures, with a few long setae besides eyes. Antenna with 10 antennomeres, club with three antennomeres, strongly reflexed, 2.5 times as long as remaining antennomeres combined. Eyes very large, ratio diameter/ interocular width: 0.98. Mentum convexly elevated and flattened anteriorly.
Pronotum widest at base, lateral margins evenly moderately convex and convergent anteriorly; anterior angles blunt and moderately produced; posterior angles blunt; anterior margin strongly convex, marginal line complete; basal margin without marginal line; surface finely and moderately densely punctate, with minute seta in punctures. Hypomeron indistinctly carinate and not produced ventrally. Scutellum wide, triangular, sparsely punctate, with minute setae in punctures.
Elytra narrow, widest at middle, striae distinctly impressed, finely punctate; intervals weakly convex, finely and densely punctate, punctures concentrated along striae; intervals almost glabrous apart from minute setae in punctures, odd intervals with a few single short setae; epipleural margin robust, ending at strongly rounded external apical angle of elytra, densely setose; apex of elytra with a fine membraneous rim of short microtrichomes.
Ventral face dull, coarsely and densely punctate, only metasternal plate and lateral metacoxa with a few long or robust setae. Mesosternum between mesocoxae as wide as mesofemur. Ratio of length of metepisternum/ metacoxa: 1/ 1.79. Abdominal sternites finely and moderately densely punctate, each with a row of coarse punctures bearing each a robust seta, otherwise glabrous. Pygidium moderately convex, coarsely and densely punctate, almost glabrous, with a few short setae along apical margin.
Legs moderately long and wide, shiny; femora finely and sparsely punctate, with two longitudinal rows of setae. Metafemur almost dull, with anterior margin acute, without adjacent serrated line; posterior ventral margin almost straight, widened in apical half, ventrally and dorsally not serrated, sparsely setose. Metatibia moderately long and wide, ratio width/ length: 1/3.2, sharply carinate dorsally, with two groups of spines, basal one shortly before middle, apical one at almost four fifths of metatibial length, basally with a few fine and short setae; lateral face longitudinally convex, finely and sparsely punctate, glabrous; ventral margin with three robust spines of which the two distal ones are more distant to each other; mesal face impunctate and glabrous; apex interiorly sharply truncate (in an angle of ca. 45° to tibial axis) near tarsal articulation. Tarsomeres impunctate dorsally, with moderately dense, fine setae ventrally; metatarsomeres ventrally with a strongly serrated carina, subventrally with a second, smooth longitudinal carina; first metatarsomere as long as following two tarsomeres combined and little longer than dorsal tibial spur. Protibia moderately long, bidentate; anterior claws symmetric, interior tarsal claws bluntly truncate.
Aedeagus: Fig. 4I–K. Habitus: 4L. Female unknown.
Diagnosis. Serica mengsongana Ahrens, Fabrizi & Liu, new species differs from the similar S. solivaga Brenske, 1898 by the wider and shorter hind legs, including metatibia, and the morphology of aedeagus: the apex of the phallobase is more straight distally and less bent as in S. solivaga; the internal lobe of the left paramere is in S. mengsongana Ahrens, Fabrizi & Liu, new species mesal rather than basal, as in S. solivaga; and the right paramere in the new species has interiorly a small sharp spine-like hook before apex.
Etymology. The name of the new species (adjective in nominative case) is derived from its type locality, Mengsong.
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 24-25, DOI: 10.11646/zootaxa.5186.1.1, http://zenodo.org/record/7073769