Themus (Haplothemus) elongatior Pic 1955
Creators: name: Yang, Yuxia
name: Liu, Haoyu
name: Yang, Xingke
Publisher: name: Zenodo
Year: 2018
Subjects: Biodiversity
Taxonomy
Animalia
Arthropoda
Insecta
Coleoptera
Cantharidae
Themus
Themus elongatior

description: Themus (Haplothemus) elongatior Pic, 1955
Figs 3, 13‒15, 27, 32
Themus elongatior Pic, 1955: 16.
Themus (s.str.) elongatior: Wittmer, 1973: 191, 210, figs 23, 24; Okushima, 1999: 57, figs 5, 30. Themus (Haplothemus) elongatior: Švihla, 2008: 185.
Type material examined. Holotype: 1♂ (MNHN), [p] “ BRITISH INDIA \ SKKIM \ Lachen-Lachung \ VIII.1933 ”, [h] “ Themus \ elongatior \ n. sp.”, [p] “ Themus \ elongatior \ Pic \ det. W. Wittmer”, [p] “ HOLOTYPUS ”.
Other material examined. CHINA, Xizang: one male, two females (MHBU), Tingri, Rongxia, 3492 m, 28°03.673ʹN, 86°20.919ʹE, 27.VII.2014, leg. G.D. Ren, X.L. Bai & J. S. Shan; one female (MHBU), Tingri, Chentang power station, 3234 m, 27°55.069ʹN, 87°28.171ʹE, 3.VIII.2014, leg. G.D. Ren, X.L. Bai & J.S. Shan; one male (IZAS), “ Tibet, Mêdog, Baibung, E. Doxong Pass Lage hotel, pitfall trap, 29.46751°N, 95.00232°E, 3210 m, 2006.8.8, Liang H.B. ”.
Distribution. China (Xizang); India, Nepal.
Redescription. Male (Fig. 3). Body black, mouthparts orange brown, darkened at mandibular apices, legs orange brown at coxae, trochanters and basal parts of femora, ventral surface orange brown, abdominal ventrites except the terminal one each side with a small round black marking. Body densely covered with decumbent black pubescence on dorsal surface but brown on ventral surface, mixed with a few long hairs along anterior margin of clypeus.
Head rounded, sparsely and finely punctate, surface lustrous; eyes moderately protruding, head width across eyes slightly wider than anterior margin of pronotum; terminal maxillary palpomeres nearly long-triangular, widest at basal two-fifths length, with outer margins slightly arcuate, inner apical margins slightly sharp and apices acute; antennae slightly thickened, almost extending to elytral mid-length, antennomeres II about four times as long as wide, III distinctly shorter than II, IV about twice as long as III, V longest, V‒X gradually shortened and narrowed one by one, XI slightly shorter than X and pointed at apices, IV‒VIII each with a short longitudinal or oblong impression at apical part of outer margin.
Pronotum subquadrate, about 1.5 times as wide as long, anterior and lateral margins arcuate, posterior margin nearly straight and narrowly bordered, anterior and posterior angles widely rounded, disc convex at postero-lateral parts, sparsely and finely punctate like that on head, surface matt.
Elytra about 6.0 times longer than pronotum, 3.3 times as long as humeral width, with lateral margins nearly parallel, disc rugulose-lacunose and coarsely punctate, surface matt.
Aedeagus (Figs 13‒15): ventral process of each paramere moderately bent inwards in ventral view, abruptly narrowed at base, distinctly protuberant at basal part of outer margin, longitudinally depressed along the whole length of ventral side, rounded and slightly turned ventrally at apex; conjoint dorsal plate of parameres distinctly shorter than ventral processes, widely and roundly emarginated in middle of apical margin, lateral angles rectangular and around with long hairs; laterophyses slightly shorter than conjoint dorsal plate, situated on dorsal side of median lobe, conjoint and depressed, widely and triangularly emarginated in middle of apical part, with latero-apical part acute at apex and slightly bent dorsally.
Female. Similar to male, but antennae slightly shorter and thinner, antennomeres IV‒VIII without any impression.
Abdominal sternite VIII (Fig. 32) triangularly emarginated in middle and rectangularly emarginated on both sides of posterior margin, the lateral emargination nearly as deep as and slightly wider than the middle one, the portion between middle and lateral emarginations rounded at apex.
Internal reproductive organ of genitalia (Fig. 27): vagina stout, with diverticulum and spermatheca situated at apical one-third part, median oviduct at basal one-third part of ventral side; diverticulum slightly long tube-shaped, distinctly shorter than vagina, evenly thick in the whole length, about twice as long as wide, rounded at apex; spermatheca slightly long sac-shaped, distinctly expanded apically and rounded at apex, which is slightly longer than diverticulum, and provided with a long and thin accessory gland at basal one-third part; diverticulum and spermatheca surrounded with a strongly sclerotized ring at base, which is confluent in middle and extending to median oviduct on ventral side, the opening of spermatheca arising from middle of the sclerotized ring on dorsal side.
Remarks. The abdominal sternite VIII of female was illustrated by Okushima (1999), but it seems different from the photo provided in the present study probably because of different preparation way of the material.
description: Published as part of Yang, Yuxia, Liu, Haoyu & Yang, Xingke, 2018, A contribution to the knowledge of Themus (Haplothemus) Wittmer from China (Coleoptera: Cantharidae), pp. 241-253 in Zootaxa 4407 (2) on pages 245-247, DOI: 10.11646/zootaxa.4407.2.5, http://zenodo.org/record/1216378