Scydmaenus intermedius Nietner 1856
Creators: name: Jałoszyński, Paweł
Publisher: name: Zenodo
Year: 2025
Subjects: Biodiversity
Taxonomy
Animalia
Arthropoda
Insecta
Coleoptera
Staphylinidae
Scydmaenus
Scydmaenus intermedius

description: Scydmaenus (s. str.) intermedius Nietner
(Figs 19–20)
Scydmaenus intermedius Nietner, 1856: 546.
Scydmaenus (Scydmaenus) intermedius Nietner; Csiki, 1919: 81.
Type material. Lectotype (here designated): ♀, three labels: “ Ceylon / Nietner..s” (white, printed and handwritten, text in black frame], QR code label with collection number 8196, and newly added “ SCYDMAENUS / (i. s.) / intermedius Nietner, 1856 / LECTOTYPUS / P. Jałoszyński, 2025 ” (MIZ).
Revised diagnosis. Head remarkably large, only slightly narrower than pronotum, tempora distinctly convex so that head is widest slightly behind eyes; elytra more strongly narrowing anterad than posterad.
Redescription. Body of female (Fig. 19) strongly elongate and strongly convex, dark brown; setae distinctly lighter than cuticle; BL 1.78 mm.
Head broadest slightly behind large and finely faceted eyes not projecting from head silhouette, HL 0.38 mm, HW 0.40 mm; frontal and vertexal regions confluent, weakly convex, vertex slightly impressed posteromedially; supraantennal tubercles weakly elevated. Punctures on frons and vertex fine and inconspicuous; setae sparse, short and recumbent. Antennae slender, with trimerous clubs, AnL 0.88 mm; antennomere 1 and 2 strongly elongate, 3–5 elongate, 6 about as long as broad, 7 and 8 each transverse (9 more so) and asymmetrical, 9 indistinctly transverse, 10 about as long as broad, 11 indistinctly broader than 10, clearly shorter than 9–10 combined, about 1.7 times as long as broad.
Pronotum oval, broadest between middle and anterior third; PL 0.50 mm, PW 0.45 mm; anterior margin strongly rounded and confluent with lateral margins, which are anteriorly strongly rounded and posteriorly nearly straight; posterior corners obtuse-angled and blunt; posterior margin nearly straight; base with two lateral pairs of small round pits. Punctures on pronotal disc similar to those on frons and vertex; setae short, moderately dense and suberect.
Elytra together oval, broadest near middle; EL 0.90 mm, EW 0.68 mm, EI 1.33; humeral calli not elevated, basal impressions virtually absent; elytral apices separately rounded. Punctures and setae similar to those on pronotum.
Legs long and slender, protarsi broadest proximally and slightly narrowing distad.
Metathoracic anapleural sulcus complete.
Male. Unknown.
Distribution. Sri Lanka, near Colombo.
Remarks. The type series consists of two females, originally mounted on separate cards and pins. They clearly belong to different species. The female illustrated in Fig. 19 is designated as the lectotype. There are no indications in the Nietner’s description which of the two specimens should be chosen as the lectotype of S. intermedius, both of them match the description, so the decision is arbitrary. The other female (collection number 8196), which most likely does not belong in the nominotypical subgenus (Fig. 20) and is somewhat similar to S. alatus is excluded from the type series of S. intermedius. Franz (1982) does not mention this species.
The lectotype of this species has the metanepisterna demarcated from the metaventrite, two pairs of antebasal pronotal pits, and trimerous antennal clubs. These characters are typical of Scydmaenus (s. str.). Moreover, the general body form, strongly convex and robust, resembles that of the type species of the nominotypical subgenus (see Jałoszyński (2016)). Among known Sri Lankan species, S. intermedius has a conspicuously large head, only slightly narrower than the pronotum.
description: Published as part of Jałoszyński, Paweł, 2025, John Nietner collection of Sri Lankan Scydmaeninae (Coleoptera, Staphylinidae), pp. 79-109 in Zootaxa 5633 (1) on pages 91-92, DOI: 10.11646/zootaxa.5633.1.4, http://zenodo.org/record/15372835