Oedichirus cooki Rougemont 2018, nov. sp.
Creators: name: Rougemont, Guillaume de
Publisher: name: Zenodo
Year: 2018
Subjects: Biodiversity
Taxonomy
Animalia
Arthropoda
Insecta
Coleoptera
Staphylinidae
Oedichirus
Oedichirus cooki

description: Oedichirus cooki nov. sp. (Figs 12)
Material studied: ♂ Holotype: NEW CALEDONIA: Prov. Nord, Mt. Panié, II♀16♀93, 20º23’S 164º45’E, 320m, leg. Platnick, Raven & Harvey, wet forest litter ♀ HOLOTYPE Oedichirus cooki Des. 2016 G. de Rougemont [AMNH].
Additional material: 1♀: NEW CALEDONIA Touho TV tower, 30 January 2004, G. B. Monteith ♀ QM Berlesate 1114, 20º39’S x 165º13’E, rainforest, sieved litter ♀ Oedichirus cooki Rgmt. ♂ det. 2017 G. de Rougemont [QM].
Description: length: ca. 10.2 mm; length of fore-body: 4.8; length of head: 1.18; breadth of head: 1.47; length of antenna: 2.63; length of pronotum: 1.75; breadth of pronotum: 1.45; length of elytron: 1.35; breadth of elytra: 1.45. Body entirely black; palpi, antennae and legs testaceous, knees strongly infuscate. Head strongly microsculptate, very finely coriaceous, appearing sericeous; pronotum entirely microsculptate, the reticulation coraser than that of head; microsculpture of elytra more feeble, abdominal tergites entirely strongly microsculptate, the sculpture consisting of transverse microstriae. Pubescence sparse, moderately long, pale, erect. Habitus: Fig. 12h.
Head strongly transverse; eyes large and protruberant; temples longer than eyes, gently rounded to base; post-ocular carina and groove situated on lateral margin, the latter merging anteriad with a narrow groove adjacent to inner margin of eye; puncturation sparse and very irregular, the punctures small, umbilicate and shallow. Pronotum very convex, behind anterior angles almost as broad as head, the sides gently rounded to base; lateral margins entirely bordered; puncturation coarse and dense, irregular but fairly homogeneous, not forming discal series apart from a pair of four punctures each near base enclosing a small impunctate area, the anterior continuation of the series merged with surrounding punctures. Elytra longer than broad, humeral angles completely obsolete, the sides evenly rounded to posterior angles; puncturation coarse and dense, not forming series, interstices almost everywhere narrower than diameter of punctures. Rows of keels and grooves on bases of tergites completely obsolete on all segments; puncturation fairly dense and coarse on tergites III-IV, sparser with a progressively large impunctate area on centre of tergites V and VI, sparser and finer on tergites VII-VIII.
Male: abdominal sternite VIII (Fig. 12s8) with characteristic asymmetrical outline of the posterior margin and a salient bluntly tipped elevation on the left side; aedoeagus: Figs. 12arl, av (inner sac everted and partially extruded in photograph).
Derivation of specific epithet: after Captain James Cook, who discovered the islands for Europe and named them in 1793.
The specimen from Touho TV tower is only tentatively assigned to O. cooki, because the elytra are a little shorter and broader and the abdominal puncturation somewhat coarser. Only the discovery of a corresponding male can establish its true status.
description: Published as part of Rougemont, Guillaume de, 2018, The genus Oedichirus in New Caledonia (Staphylinidae: Paederinae: Pinophilini), pp. 537-586 in Linzer biologische Beiträge 50 (1) on pages 545-546, DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.4004257