Pseudomeira reitteri Vitale 1903
Creators: name: Bellò, Cesare
name: Baviera, Cosimo
Publisher: name: Zenodo
Year: 2011
Subjects: Biodiversity
Taxonomy
Animalia
Arthropoda
Insecta
Coleoptera
Curculionidae
Pseudomeira
Pseudomeira reitteri

description: Pseudomeira reitteri (Vitale, 1903)
(Figs 11, 12, 37, 38, 56, 68, 84, 98)
Peritelus reitteri Vitale, 1903a: 21; Vitale, 1903b: 8; Ragusa, 1904: 58; Vitale, 1905: 183; Vitale, 1906b: 85; Pic, 1908: 44; Solari & Solari, 1907: 119.
Peritelus (Peritelus) reitteri: Luigioni, 1929: 873.
Peritelus (Pseudomeira) vitalei: Lona, 1937: 264.
Pseudomeira reitteri: Abbazzi et al., 1995: 23; Pierotti & Bellò, 1995: 530; Pierotti & Bellò, 1998: 105; Sparacio, 1999: 136; Colonnelli, 2003: 48; Osella et al., 2005; Pierotti, 2009: 482; Abbazzi & Maggini, 2009: 62.
Type locality: Sicily, Castroreale Bagni (Messina).
Diagnosis: Middle-sized (3.4–4.5 mm), elongate-oval. Epistoma impressed, clypeus almost flat and longitudinally impressed medially. Elytra clothed by earth-brown scales and elongate rather thick with suberect setae. Aedeagus with rounded slightly lobate apex (Fig. 68).
Description: Small, dorsal vestiture of strongly imbricate earth-brown scales and suberect quite thick setae whose apex is slightly widening, more so on apical declivity. Pronotum with a darker band on each side, dark spots are also around scutellum, at the base of interval 5, and here and there on elytra, mainly on apical declivity.
Rostrum strongly transverse, sides not or very weakly converging apically. Epistoma deeply impressed with bulging edges; pterygia not or just slightly protruding; clypeus very deeply impressed longitudinally; frons higher than rostrum, with a distinct median impression. Eyes barely protruding from head outline. Antennae quite robust; scape curved at basal third and progressively thickening towards apex; second funicular segment at least 1.5 times as long as wide, the following pearl-shaped and more or less transverse; club quite robust and with the first segment widely conical.
Pronotum more (3) or less (Ƥ) transverse, base not wider than anterior margin, sides rounded, disc with punctures thick and deep, partially hidden by the scales.
Elytra subparallel sided. Striae formed by obvious punctures, interstriae feebly convex.
Legs quite robust; external margin of protibiae straight almost to the shortly rounded apex.
Aedeagus: see Figs. 56, 68. Spiculum ventral: see Fig.84. Spermatheca: see Fig. 98.
Distribution: Sicily.
Neotypus: After a careful search in the Vitale collection and in those of all entomologists (Desbrochers, Ragusa, Solari, etc.) to whom he used to donate or exchange specimens, we could not locate any type. We concluded that most probably the type (s) has been destroyed by the earthquake of 1908 when most of the insects collected by Vitale before this date got lost. According to the rules of the art. 75 of the International Code (ICZN,1999), to fix the name we select here a male neotype (VIT) from the type locality labeled as follows: "3" [white, printed], "Sicilia-ME-Castroreale, 24.IV.06 leg. Bellò" [white, printed], " N 38°05.750” E 015°11.906" [white, printed], "al vaglio lettiera Olea europaea " [white, printed], " Pseudomeira reitteri (Vitale, 1903) det. C. Bellò, " [white, printed], "coll. Cesare Bellò" [green, printed]; " Pseudomeira reitteri (Vitale, 1903), NEOTYPUS des. Bellò, 2010 " [red, partly printed].
Material: A total of 397 specimens were examined; genitalia of 51 were studied, and molecular data were obtained from 14 males and females.
Localities: Messina (DOD, FOR, HOF, SOL, VIT): Basicò (BAV, BEL); Brolo (BEL); Campogrande (BEL, OSE, PIE); Castroreale Bagni (BEL, PIE, BAV); Gazzi (HOF, VIT); Mazzarà (RAG), Novara Sicula (SOL); Ortoliuzzo (BAV, BEL); San Pier Niceto (BAV, BEL), Termini Bagni (RAG).
Ecology: Specimens have been collected by sifting leaf-litter taken beneath Olea europaea europaea L. and Quercus sp., whereas Vitale (1903) found them in winter "sotto scorze al pedale di un vecchio olivo”. The aestivating, often worn, adults survive until the beginning of the winter.
Reproduction: Amphigonic.
description: Published as part of Bellò, Cesare & Baviera, Cosimo, 2011, On the Sicilian species of Pseudomeira Stierlin (Coleoptera: Curculionidae: Entiminae), pp. 35-68 in Zootaxa 3100 on pages 42-43, DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.204879