Dodomeira confusa Baviera 2017
Creators: name: Baviera, Cosimo
Publisher: name: Zenodo
Year: 2017
Subjects: Biodiversity
Taxonomy
Animalia
Arthropoda
Insecta
Coleoptera
Curculionidae
Dodomeira
Dodomeira confusa

description: Dodomeira confusa (Pierotti, 2012).
(Figures 15, 15a, 15b, 15c, 15d, 15e, 15f, 41g, 74, 113)
Pseudomeira confusa Pierotti, 2012: 1 –4; Alonso-Zarazaga et alii, 2016: 28.
Type locality. Sicily, Messina, Nebrodi, San Fratello (Fig.156).
Diagnosis. A relatively large size species (3.70–4.55 mm) belonging to the caoduroi group with slender, subparallel elytra and sub-cylindrical body shaped. Within the species group, it is easily recognisable by the elytra less slender (length: 2.40–3.00 mm, width: 1.45–1.80 mm, ratio 1.66–1.69) and pronotum transverse (length: 0.75–0.95 mm, width: 0.90–1.10 mm, ratio 0.83–0.86). Elytra vaulted dorsally, clothed by imbricate brownish-silvery scales and elongate golden setae clavate or widened, curved, raised (angle with elytral surface 30°–45°) and rather catenulate.
Material examined. 3 females: “ San Fratello, ME [ssina], 600 m, lettiera Olea e. oleaster, 23. XI. [19] ’90, leg. Bellò ” (CBE); 1 female: “ Sicilia, Nebrodi, San Fratello, lettiera Olea e. sativa, 26. VI. [19] ’91, leg. Bellò ” (CBE); 3 females: “ Sicilia, ME [ssina], San Fratello, m 375, al vaglio lettiera Olea e. sativa, N 38°02.513’ E 014°34.996’, 23.IV. [20] ‘06, leg. Bellò ” (CBE); 5 females: “ Sicilia, ME [ssina], San Fratello, m 375, al vaglio lettiera di Olea e., N 38°02.512’ E 014°34.997’, 21.X. [20] ‘06, leg. Bellò ” (CBE); 5 females: “I, Sicilia, ME [ssina], Nebrodi, S. [an] Fratello, m 365, vaglio Olea, N 38°02.514’ E 014°35.000’, 28. XI. [20] ’09, legg. Bellò & Chemello” (CBE); 2 females: “I, Sicilia, ME [ssina], San Fratello, vaglio Olea, 21. IV. 2010, leg. Bellò ” (CBE); 28 females: “I, Sicilia, ME [ssina], Nebrodi, S. [an] Fratello, m 365, vaglio sotto
Olea, N 38°02.514’ E 014°35.000’, 5. IV. 2011, legg. Baviera & Bellò ” (CBA, CBE, ECO, GOS, MCZR, MSNG, MSNM, MSNV). Other material. 3 females: “I, Sicilia, ME [ssina], Nebrodi, San Marco d’Alunzio, 75m, vaglio Olea, N 38°05.080’ E 014°40.556’, 10. III. 2014, leg. Bellò ” (CBE).
Redescription. Female topotype. Total length: 4.20 mm. Body shape slender and subcylindrical. Dorsal vestiture with imbricate, brownish-silvery scales with metallic sheen. Relatively elongate, widened or clavate setae on pronotum as on elytra and raised, (angle with elytral surface 30°–45°).
Rostrum covered by brownish-silvery scales, transverse (length/width ratio 0.65), sub-parallel to the sides. Pterygia inconspicuous. Epistome present, concave with raised plate. Mesorostrum concave, anteriorly with ten thin, curved, semi-erect setae. Vertex wide and convex (vertex width / mesorostrum width: ratio 2.00) with several, elongate, widened, raised setae. Interocular space without visible fovea.
Lateral, relatively small, slightly spherical eyes not protruding from outline of head. Antenna quite robust and short with recumbent, golden, widened setae. Antenna with ratio 0.85 (scape length: 0.74 mm, funicle length: 1.15 mm). Scape clubbed, slightly more robust than funicle, curved at the basal third and progressively thickening towards apex. Funicle segments including club, relative lengths as follows: 11.6.5.4.4.4.4.17; first four segments with clavate-widened setae; segments 4–7 pearl-shaped. Club at least twice wider than funicle, fusiform with suture between first and second segment visible.
Pronotum clothed with brownish-silvery scales, transverse (length: 0.90 mm, width: 1.05 mm, ratio: 0.85), slightly sub-hexagonal, rounded at the sides, wider in the middle, with short, widened-clavate, golden raised setae. Punctation usually covered by scales. Scutellum inconspicuous.
Elytra (length: 2.70 mm, width: 1.60 mm, ratio: 1.69) vaulted dorsally, sub-parallel, covered by brownishsilvery scales, with flat suture, strongly rounded on sides, wider at the middle. Humeri short and rounded. Elytral declivity with widened-clavate, raised (30°–45°) setae.
Punctation of striae, shallow, rather catenulate and impressed. Interstriae flat, with clavate, elongate, golden, raised setae.
Legs short and robust clothed by silvery-golden scales and rather short, elongate-clavate silvery-golden setae. Femora little clubbed. Protibia with four acute spines on inner edge, with evident mucro on inner apical angle. Protibia quite sinuous on inner edge, metatibia and mesotibia straight in side view.
Tarsal segment 1 short, conical; segment 2 short and transverse; segment 3 shallowly bilobed; all segments with thin golden setae. Onychium curved, quite robust and quite short.
Female genitalia. See Figures: spermatheca (Fig. 74), sternite VIII (Fig. 113).
Genitalia were examined in nine specimens.
Topotypes variability. All topotypes are females. The topotypes of years 1990, 1991 differ from those of years 2006, 2009, 2010, 2011 for the smaller size and more clavate setae.
Distribution. See Fig. 140. Italian endemic. Known from Nebrodi Mountains at 50–400 meters a.s.l..
Ecology and Phenology. Collected by Berlese and Winkler extractors from soil obtained sifting the leaf litter on clay soil, of an olive grove in spring and automn, at 50–400 meters.
Collections in the summer season gave negative results.
Main soil type. Vertic-Cambisol (European Soil Data Centre; Panagos et al. 2012).
Reproduction. Parthenogenetic. Species known from fifty females.
Chorological relationships. Sympatric at San Fratello with Pseudomeira nebrodensis Pierotti
(2009) while at San Marco d’ Alunzio with Pseudomeira solarii (Péricart, 1963).
Systematic Note. In the San Fratello locality (Sicily, Monti Nebrodi) two sympatric species live: one parthenogenetic (belonging to Dodomeira gen. n.) and one amphigonic (belonging to Pseudomeira Stierlin, 1881). In a nomenclature note Pierotti (2012) established that the name P. nebrodensis must be preserved for the holotype male of the amphigonic species. He re-describes the two species, using the new name P. confusa for the parthenogenetic species and P. nebrodensis for the amphigonic.
description: Published as part of Baviera, Cosimo, 2017, A taxonomic monograph of the genus Dodomeira Bellò & Baviera, a new genus of Peritelini from Sicily (Coleoptera: Curculionidae: Entiminae), pp. 1-138 in Zootaxa 4334 (1) on pages 51-53, DOI: 10.11646/zootaxa.4334.1.1, http://zenodo.org/record/1009865