Enicopus (Enicopus) ater
Creators: name: Miao, Jialin
name: Liu, Haoyu
name: Tong, Junbo
name: Yang, Xingke
name: Yang, Yuxia
Publisher: name: Zenodo
Year: 2025
Subjects: Biodiversity
Taxonomy
Animalia
Arthropoda
Insecta
Coleoptera
Melyridae
Enicopus
Enicopus ater

description: Enicopus (Enicopus) ater (Fabricius, 1787)
Lagria atra Fabricius, 1787 - Fabricius 1787: 94.
Melyris ater (Fabricius, 1787) - Olivier 1790: 9; Olivier 1808: plate 2, figs. 8 a- 8 e.
Dasytes ater (Fabricius, 1787) - Germar 1817: 209; Stephens 1829: 136; Küster 1849: 15.
Enicopus ater (Fabricius, 1787) - Stephens 1830: 318; Stephens 1833: 46; Stephens 1839: 195; Spry and Shuckard 1840: 75; Mayor 2007: 407 (syn. of E. pilosus Scopoli, 1763); Liberti and Constantin 2009: 298.
Materials
Type status: Other material. Occurrence: recordedBy: Shuyong Wang; individualCount: 8; sex: 4 males, 4 females; lifeStage: adult; occurrenceID: 88CA14BD-017B-5FDF-8245-6F0B22E842FE; Location: country: China; stateProvince: Xinjiang; county: Qinghe; verbatimElevation: 1450 m; Event: year: 1960; month: 7; day: 3; Record Level: institutionID: Institute of Zoology, Chinese Academy of Sciences; institutionCode: IZAS
Description
Male (Fig. 1 A). Body length 7.4–9.4 mm, width 2.3–2.9 mm.
Body black with lustre, except for antennomeres 3 and 4 yellow at apices. Body densely and coarsely punctate on surface, as well as covered with short and recumbent black pubescence, grey on antennomeres 3–11, tibiae and tarsi. Vertex behind eyes densely covered with long erect black hairs. Antennomeres 1 and 2 covered with a few erect black hairs. Pronotum densely covered with long erect black hairs around all margins, of which that on lateral margins longer than those on anterior and posterior margins. Elytra covered with long erect black hairs along margins, which are progressively shortened towards apices.
Head width across eyes narrower than anterior margin of pronotum, present with a pair of shallow depressions on vertex. Antennae quite short, extending to posterior margin of pronotum when inclined, antennomeres 1 nearly ellipsoid, 1.5 times as long as wide, 2 short, apical half expanded, 3–10 triangular with truncate apex, 11 elongate and fusiform, twice as long as wide. Ultimate maxillary palpomere fusiform, about 1.7 times longer than the penultimate one.
Pronotum transverse and 1.3 times as wide as long, widest near middle, anterior margin slightly arcuate, lateral margins slightly diverging posteriorly and regularly rounded with distinct edges, posterior margin slightly bisinuate.
Elytra elongate and parallel-sided, 2.1–2.3 times longer than wide at humeri, 2.3–2.5 times longer than pronotum, rounded at humeri, acute at apices.
Front femora slightly swollen, each tibia with a pair of small and sharply-hooked spurs at apex, tarsomeres 1 with a large and sharply hooked appendage on outer side, which bear a large gable-shaped tooth on inner base (Fig. 2 A – B); middle tarsomeres 1 short, with a pair of small sharp teeth; hind femora slightly swollen, tibiae slightly swollen, distinctly curved, tarsomeres 1 with a large spoon-shaped appendage on outer base, which is bent inwards and slightly wider at apical part than basal part, external angle acute and pointing upwards, tarsomeres 2 very long and twice longer than combined length of tarsomeres 3–5 and terminating into a small tooth at apex; tarsal claws symmetrical, with a pair of broad membranous appendages, which slightly shorter than the claws (Fig. 2 C – E).
Ultimate abdominal ventrite (Fig. 3 A) saddle-form, narrowed posteriorly, 1.2–1.3 times as wide as long, shallowly and trapezoidally emarginate in middle of posterior margin, present with a slender central process at anterior margin, which does not extend over antero-lateral angles, surface densely covered with long black hairs along lateral margins. Pygidium (Fig. 3 B) shield-form, 1.0–1.1 times longer than wide, feebly narrowed posteriorly, hardly emarginate in middle of posterior margin, largely and triangularly protuberant in middle of anterior margin, with antero-lateral angles obviously protruding, surface covered with long black hairs in centre and along lateral margins. Aedeagus: tegmen (Fig. 3 C and D) nearly bullet-shaped, present with a pair of symmetrical and nearly semicircular lobes at apex, wider than long, where it is densely covered with long hairs; median lobe strongly bent ventrally, dorso-ventrally flattened apically in lateral view (Fig. 3 E), with apex slightly hooked ventrally, slightly elongated at apex in ventral view (Fig. 3 F); internal sac (Fig. 3 H) long and membranous, fitted with four types of spines: the first type (I) located at base, a dozen or so, yellow and slender, arranged in parallel, the second type (II) dozens, brown, short and nearly triangular, the third type (III) dozens, black and slender and the fourth type (IV) located at the apical part, a dozen or so, black, stout and long. Spiculum gastrale Y-shaped (Fig. 3 G).
Female (Fig. 1 B). Similar to male, but body larger, length 8.7–9.6 mm, width 3.1–3.4 mm. Eyes less prominent. Front tarsomeres 1 without any appendage; middle tarsi simple; hind tibiae normally slender, straight, tarsomeres 1 without any appendage, tarsomeres 2 much shorter than that of male. Ultimate abdominal ventrite (Fig. 4 A) trapezoidal, strongly narrowed posteriorly, posterior margin nearly truncate, present with a very long central process at anterior margin, which distinctly extends over postero-lateral angles. Pygidium (Fig. 4 B) strongly narrowed posteriorly, semicircularly emarginate in middle of posterior margin, arcuate at anterior margin, antero-lateral angles obviously protruding. Ovipositor (Fig. 4 C) slender and membranous, gonostylus feebly long and nearly cylindrical.
Diagnosis
This species can be distinguished from all other species of E. (Enicopus) by the characteristics of tarsal appendages and aedeagus. It looks more similar to E. (Enicopus) pilosus (Scopoli, 1763), but can be distinguished by the combination of the following characters: appendage on hind tarsomeres 1 of male flattened and spoon-shaped, with the external angle pointing upwards; median lobe strongly curved ventrally in lateral view; tegmen with a pair of nearly semicircular lobes at apex, which are separated and feebly wider than long. Unlike in E. pilosus, appendage on hind tarsomeres 1 of male is sickle-shaped, with apical part bent upwards (Liberti and Constantin 2009: fig. 23); median lobe is slightly curved dorsally in lateral view (Liberti and Constantin 2009: fig. 8); tegmen bears a pair of slender and parallel lobes at apex, which are much longer than wide (Liberti and Constantin 2009: fig. 12).
Distribution
China (new record: Xinjiang), Albania, Armenia, Austria, Azerbaijan, Bosnia-Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Caucasus, Croatia, southern France, Georgia, Greece, Hungary, Iran, Italy, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Macedonia, Montenegro, Romania, Russia (incl. South Siberia), Serbia, Turkey, Ukraine, Uzbekistan.
Notes
Liberti and Constantin (2009) presented a detailed list of all synonyms for this species, which are omitted here. Meanwhile, they depicted the internal sac of the median lobe with 3-5 spines at the apex (Liberti and Constantin 2009: fig. 11), but there are many more shown in our material (Fig. 3 H). Later, they provided an illustration of the adult male, whose hind tarsomeres 2 is slightly longer than the combined length of the last three tarsomeres (Constantin and Liberti 2011: fig. 27), while it is much longer in our material (Fig. 1 A). Nevertheless, we identify them as E. (Enicopus) ater because more or less variations can occur in such a widespread species.
description: Published as part of Miao, Jialin, Liu, Haoyu, Tong, Junbo, Yang, Xingke & Yang, Yuxia, 2025, First discovery of the genus Enicopus Stephens (Coleoptera, Dasytidae) from China, pp. e 144281 in Biodiversity Data Journal 13 on page e144281, DOI: 10.3897/BDJ.13.e144281