Gynaecoserica obfuscata Ahrens 2022, new species
Creators: name: Ahrens, Dirk
Publisher: name: Zenodo
Year: 2022
Subjects: Biodiversity
Taxonomy
Animalia
Arthropoda
Insecta
Coleoptera
Melolonthidae
Gynaecoserica
Gynaecoserica obfuscata

description: Gynaecoserica obfuscata Ahrens, new species
Fig. 1A–D
Type material examined. Holotype: ♂ “836962 / 836962 Laos Hua Phan prov. Phou Pane Mt. 1480-1510m, 1.- 16.6.2009 V. Kuban Gynaecoserica spn_LA1 / 1157 Sericini Asia spec.” (ZFMK). Paratypes: 1 ♂ “ LAOS, Houa Phan prov., 20°13'09-19''N, 103°59'54''-104°00'03''E, 1480-1550 m, Phou Pane Mt., 1.-16.vi.2009, Zdeněk Kraus leg. / NHMB Basel, NMPC Prague, Laos 2009, Expedition: M. Brancucci, M. Geiser, Z. Kraus, D. Hauck, V. Kubáň / 1095 Sericini Asia spec.” (NHMB), 1 ♂ “ LAOS, Houa Phan prov., 20°13'09-19''N, 103°59'54''-104°00'03''E, 1480-1550 m, Phou Pane Mt., 9.-16.vi.2009, D. Hauck leg. / NHMB Basel, NMPC Prague, Laos 2009, Expedition: M. Brancucci, M. Geiser, Z. Kraus, D. Hauck, V. Kubáň / 1095 Sericini Asia spec.” (NHMB).
Description of the holotype. Length: 4.6 mm, length of elytra: 3.0 mm, width: 2.5 mm. Body oblong, dorsal surface dark brown, pronotum and scutellum with greenish shine, antenna and legs yellowish, dorsal surface except head dull and almost glabrous, sparsely setose.
Labroclypeus widest shortly before base, lateral margins convex, anterior angles strongly convex, lateral border and ocular canthus producing a distinct blunt angle; margins weakly reflexed; anterior margin shallowly sinuate medially; surface weakly elevated medially and weakly shiny, finely and coarsely but densely punctate, distance between punctures less than their diameter, behind anterior margin with a few long, erect setae; frontoclypeal suture feebly incised and curved; smooth area in front of eye almost as wide as long; ocular canthus short and slender (length subequal 1/3 of ocular diameter), impunctate, with a short terminal seta. Frons shiny, posterior quarter dull, with fine and coarse, moderately dense punctures, with some long erect setae beside eyes, otherwise punctures with minute setae. Eyes small, ratio of diameter/ interocular width: 0.6. Antenna yellow, with ten antennomeres; club dark brown, with six antennomeres, straight, 1.2 times as long as the remaining antennomeres combined. Mentum weakly elevated and flattened anteriorly.
Pronotum narrow, widest at base, lateral margins straight in basal half and moderately convergent, in anterior half weakly curved and convergent anteriorly; anterior angles weakly produced and blunt, posterior angles blunt; anterior margin weakly convexly produced medially, with a distinct fine marginal line, basal margin without marginal line; anterior and lateral finely sparsely setose; surface with moderately dense and fine punctures, midline impunctate, with microscopic white setae in punctures, otherwise glabrous; hypomeron distinctly carinate at base but not ventrally produced. Scutellum dark brown, narrow and moderately short, triangular, with dense, large but shallow punctures, punctures with microscopic setae.
Elytra elongate, widest at middle, striae distinctly impressed, finely and densely punctate; intervals weakly convex, with fine and moderately dense punctures concentrated along striae, punctures with minute white adjacent setae, odd intervals with a few single robust, white adpressed setae; interior apical angle of elytra with a strong seta; epipleural edge fine ending at strongly curved external apical angle of elytra; epipleura sparsely setose, apical border without short microtrichomes (visible at 100x magnification).
Ventral surface dull, with fine and moderately dense punctures, sparsely setose; metacoxa only laterally with a few strong adjacent setae. Each abdominal sternite with indistinct transverse row of coarse punctures bearing short setae between fine, dense punctation. Mesosternum between mesocoxae as wide as mesofemur, with irregularly scattered very strong setae. Ratio of length of metepisternum/metacoxa: 1/1.6. Pygidium weakly convex, coarsely and densely punctate, with wide smooth midline, dull, with short and long, dense setae on entire surface.
Legs moderately slender and long; femora dull, with two longitudinal rows of setae, finely and sparsely punctate; metafemur shiny, sharply carinate anteriorly and without a submarginal serrate line; ventral posterior margin weakly convex and glabrous, only weakly widened in apical half and not serrate, dorsally posterior margin finely serrate, with short setae. Metatibia slender and moderately long, widest at middle of metatibial length, ratio width/ length: 1/3.54, dorsally moderately carinate, with two groups of spines, basal one shortly before the middle, apical one at two thirds of metatibial length, basally nearly glabrous; lateral face longitudinally convex, with sparse and fine punctures, glabrous; ventral margin carinate and serrate, with three strong spines, of which the two distal are widely separated; internal face very finely and sparsely punctate; apex interiorly near tarsal articulation sharply and deeply truncate. Tarsomeres dorsally glabrous and impunctate, ventrally with sparse, short setae; metatarsomeres ventrally with a strongly serrate ridge, beside which is a fine longitudinal carina; first metatarsomere little shorter than following two tarsomeres combined and almost twice as long as dorsal tibial spur. Protibia moderately long, bidentate, protarsal claws symmetrical.
Aedeagus: Fig. 1A–C. Habitus: Fig. 1D.
Female unknown.
Diagnosis. Gynaecoserica obfuscata Ahrens, new species is in shape of aedeagus most similar to G. maymyoensis Ahrens & Fabrizi, 2009. Gynaecoserica obfuscata Ahrens, new species differs by the strongly curved phallobase (lateral view) which is ventrally bluntly enlarged, and the apical lateral apophysis of phallobase is slightly curved dorsally; the fused parameres are in the new species distally less strongly narrowed as in G. maymyoensis.
Etymology. The name of the new species is derived from the Latin adjective obfuscates, darkened.
Genbank accession numbers: Holotype, voucher number 836962: rrnL (KT304138), 28S (KT303005), CO1 (3’end) (KT303522) (form Eberle et al. 2017).
description: Published as part of Ahrens, Dirk, 2022, New Gynaecoserica Brenske, 1897 species and further new bicolored species of the Neoserica calva group (Coleoptera: Scarabaeidae: Melolonthinae: Sericini), pp. 180-190 in Zootaxa 5165 (2) on pages 181-182, DOI: 10.11646/zootaxa.5165.2.2, http://zenodo.org/record/6831725