Pangaphaenops seraphicus Tian & Huang & Jia 2023, n. sp.
Creators: name: Tian, Mingyi
name: Huang, Sunbin
name: Jia, Xinyang
Publisher: name: Zenodo
Year: 2023
Subjects: Biodiversity
Taxonomy
Animalia
Arthropoda
Insecta
Coleoptera
Carabidae
Pangaphaenops
Pangaphaenops seraphicus

description: Pangaphaenops seraphicus n. sp.
Figures 1h, 20–22
Type material. Holotype male, Cave I, Suolue Town, Bama Yao Autonomous County, Hechi Shi, Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, Southern China, 113.36°E, 23.16°N, 532 m, 2022-VI-21, leg. Jingli Cheng, in SCAU.
Diagnosis. Small-sized and Sinaphaenops -like beetles, with very long antennae and legs, eyeless and depigmented, head much longer than prothorax.
Description. Length: 5.8 mm; width: 1.7 mm. Habitus as in Figure 20.
Body brown, but antennae, mouthparts palps and tarsi pale yellow; moderately shiny; head with a few sparse setae on genae and in front of neck constriction, pronotum, elytra and abdominal ventrites glabrous; legs covered with short pubescence, antennae pubescent from the 2 nd to 11 th joints; microsculpture: engraved meshes moderately transverse on head, irregularly but more or less transversal striate on pronotum and elytra. Ventral head sparsely setose; suborbital pores near neck constriction; each coxa with two setae in middle and hind legs, unsetose in fore leg; prosternum with four or five long setae; meso- and metasterna smooth and glabrous.
Head elongate, much longer than wide, HLm/HW = 2.52, HLl/HW = 2.10; genae not evidently expanded medially, widest at about middle of head including mandibles, gradually narrowed posteriorly and strongly contracted before neck constriction; labrum transverse, 6-setose, median two smaller and shorter; anterior supraorbital setiferous pores located at about middle of head and the posterior ones just in front of neck constriction; mandibles fairly short though well-developed, feebly curved apically; labial suture completely disappeared, mentum tooth fine, unified at tip, much shorter than lateral lobes; ligula thick and short, 8-setose at apex, inner two much longer than other; palps thin and elongate, all glabrous but bisetose on inner margin of 2 nd labial palpomere (without additional seta on outer margin), penultimate palpomere 1.20 and 1.10 times longer than the apical one in labium and maxillary respectively; suborbital pores close to neck constriction; antennae thin, scape shortest, glabrous, stouter than others, slightly shorter than pedicel; the 4 th and 5 th longest, the comparative length of each antennomere from the 1 st to 11 th in holotype as: 1 st (1.00) / 2 nd (1.20) / 3 rd (1.82) / 4 th (2.08) / 5 th (2.19) / 6 th (2.00) / 7 th (1.72) / 8 th (1.54) / 9 th (1.43) / 10 th (1.21) / 11 th (1.44).
Prothorax elongate, shorter than head, PrL/HLm = 0.62, PrL/HLl = 0.83; slightly wider than head, PrW/ HW = 1.12; much longer than wide, PrL/ PrW = 1.51; wider than pronotum, PrW/PnW = 1.13; propleura invisible from above in apical 1/3, widest at about basal 1/3. Pronotum much longer than wide, PnL/PnW = 1.73; almost as wide as head, PnW/HW = 0.88; base slight wider than front, PbW/PfW = 1.10; lateral margin feebly bordered throughout, widest at about middle, then gently narrowed forwardly and backwardly; anterior latero-marginal setae located at about apical 2/11, whereas posterior ones distant from hind angles; fore transverse impression faint, while the posterior one well marked, median line clear. Scutellum moderately sized.
Elytra longer than wide, EL/EW = 1.68; somewhat expanded posteriorly; much wider than pronotum, EW/PnW = 2.15; striae invisible but 1 st stria traceable in basal half. Chaetotaxy (Figure 21A): basal pore present; dorsal and preapical pores large and well-marked and easily recognized, anterior dorsal pore located at about basal 2/9 of elytra, posterior one at about middle, marginal umbilicate set, preapical pore at about apical 1/7 of elytra, closer to suture than to apical margin; 1 st pores of the marginal umbilicate series located at the position of 6 th stria and behind level of 2 nd, 4 th pore closer to 5 th than to 3 rd; the anguloapical pore present.
Legs thin and very slender; the 1 st tarsomere slightly shorter than 2 nd –4 th tarsomeres together in fore leg, whereas longer than those in middle and hind legs respectively.
Ventrites smooth, IV–VI each with a pair of paramedial setae, VII bisetose apically in male.
Male genitalia (Figure 21B, C): The median lobe of aedeagus with a large copulatory piece in inner sac which is widely opened dorsally, paramere subequal sized.
Female: Unknown.
Etymology. From Medieval Latin, relating to seraph; sublime. Refers to this beautiful new species.
Distribution. China (Guangxi). Known only from the Suolue Cave I in western Bama Yao Autonomous County (Figure 22).
This anonymous cave is located at a small village about 6 kilometres from Suolue Town. It has two entrances along a remote road and is about 500 metres long. There are some stalactites inside the cave and, in particular, many soda straws of various kinds. Large parts of the main passage were wet and so good for cave creatures. The unique beetle specimen was observed running on a wall of a stalactite in a small chamber about 230 metres from the left entrance. Other cave animals observed also were bats, crickets, spiders, ant-loving beetles and three species of millipedes (Figure 22).
description: Published as part of Tian, Mingyi, Huang, Sunbin & Jia, Xinyang, 2023, A contribution to cavernicolous beetle diversity of South China Karst: eight new genera and fourteen new species (Coleoptera: Carabidae: Trechini), pp. 1-66 in Zootaxa 5243 (1) on pages 33-37, DOI: 10.11646/zootaxa.5243.1.1, http://zenodo.org/record/7642400