Syndicus (Semisyndicus) schuelkei Jałoszyński, 2011, sp. n.
Creators: name: Jałoszyński, Paweł
Publisher: name: Zenodo
Year: 2011
Subjects: Biodiversity
Taxonomy
Animalia
Arthropoda
Insecta
Coleoptera
Staphylinidae
Syndicus
Syndicus schuelkei

description: Syndicus (Semisyndicus) schuelkei sp. n.
(Figs. 3, 8, 9)
Type material. Holotype: CHINA: 3, two labels: " CHINA: Yunnan [CH 07-13], Baoshian \ Pref., Gaoligong Shan, E pass, 36 km SE \ Tengchong, 2200 m, 24°49'32''N \ 98°46'06''E, decid. forest, litter, wood \ fungi sifted, 31.V.2007, M. Schülke" [white, printed]; " SYNDICUS \ (SEMISYNDICUS) \ schuelkei m. \ det. P. Jałoszyński, 2010 \ HOLOTYPUS " [red, printed] (PCMS).
Diagnosis. Males of this species differ from all other Semisyndicus in distinctly but loosely punctate pronotal disc, finely punctate head and elytra, and very stout aedeagus. Female diagnostic characters remain unknown.
Description. BL 2.93 mm. Body of male (Fig. 3) moderately convex, dark brown, legs and palps slightly lighter; vestiture slightly lighter than cuticle.
Head broadest at large, finely-faceted and moderately convex eyes, HL 0.50 mm, HW 0.60 mm; tempora in strictly dorsal view regularly, weakly arcuate; vertex strongly transverse, regularly convex, with well marked posteromedian longitudinal wrinkle, confluent with small, flattened frons; supraantennal tubercles prominent, each elongate, indistinctly delimited from frons and not delimited from vertex; clypeus not modified, with anterior margin slightly concave. Dorsum of head very glossy, sparsely and finely punctate, punctures on frons and vertex small but sharply marked and recognizable at magnification 20x, unevenly distributed, separated by spaces 1– 4 x as long as puncture diameters; setae sparse, moderately long, strongly erect. Antennae not reaching half of BL, slightly thickened toward apices, AnL 1.38 mm, relative lengths of antennomeres: 1: 1: 1.1: 1: 0.9: 0.8: 1: 0.9: 1: 0.9: 1.
Pronotum elongate with regularly convex, trapezoid disc, broadest near anterior third; PL 0.80 mm, PWb 0.58 mm, PWm 0.68 mm; anterior margin convex; sides strongly narrowing posteriorly and strongly constricted in posterior third; posterior collar very short, separated from disc by transverse row of four small but deep dorsal pits, median pair of pits separated by indistinct longitudinal wrinkle, additionally base of pronotum with very small but distinct pit near each hind angle and vertical sides of pronotum anterior to dorsal pits bear two small, shallow and slightly diffused impressions and distinct oblique lateral groove; posterior margin of pronotum very shallowly bisinuate. Disc glossy, unevenly covered with moderately large but deep and sharply marked punctures separated by spaces 1– 3 x as long as puncture diameters, narrow and short median line remains impunctate; setae thin, moderately dense and long, erect.
Elytra in lateral view slightly more convex than pronotum, broadest distinctly anterior to middle and strongly narrowing toward apices, distinctly flattened near suture in anterior third; EL 1.63 mm, EW 1.03 mm, EI 1.59; humeral calli distinct, protruding anterad; basal impression on each elytron deep but short; punctures larger but much shallower than those on pronotum, with diffused margins, those on circumsutural flattening separated by spaces 1–1.5x as long as puncture diameters, laterad and caudad punctures reducing in diameters and becoming gradually sparser; setae about as dense as those on pronotum but slightly longer and thicker, suberect.
Legs moderately long and slender; dorsal femoral groove clearly visible on entire length of femoral clava; all tibiae nearly straight.
Aedeagus (Figs. 8, 9) relatively stout, AeL 0.58 mm; endophallus in ventral view with complicated system of darkly sclerotized, strongly elongate structures; parameres without apical setae, only slightly exceeding apex of median lobe.
Female. Unknown.
Distribution. Southern China: Yunnan Province.
Etymology. This species is dedicated to Michael Schülke, who has collected this and many other new species of Scydmaeninae and kindly made his large collection available for me to study.
Remarks. Among all other species of Semisyndicus, S. schuelkei is most similar to the only member of this genus known so far from China, S. sinensis Jałoszyński, 2004. These two species share a very similar body shape, length and proportions of body parts, and the structures of their endophalli are also very similar. Syndicus schuelkei is distinctly more glossy than S. sinensis and the latter has much denser punctures on the pronotal disc. Antennomeres II and III in S. schuelkei are nearly equal in length, while in S. sinensis antennomere III is distinctly longer than II. The most striking character of the new species, however, is the very stout aedeagus, resembling the typical shape of the nominotypical subgenus of Syndicus rather than the slender form found in all other Semisyndicus. The most similar aedeagus of S. sinensis (illustrated in Jałoszyński 2008) is in ventral view 2.4x as long as broad and has the parameres markedly exceeding the apex of median lobe, while that of S. schuelkei is only 1.9x as long as broad and its parameres minimally exceed the apex of median lobe.
description: Published as part of Jałoszyński, Paweł, 2011, New species and new records of Syndicus Motschulsky (Coleoptera, Staphylinidae, Scydmaeninae), pp. 21-28 in Zootaxa 2991 on pages 26-27, DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.204664