Agelopsis Jacoby 1896
Creators: name: Bezděk, Jan
Publisher: name: Zenodo
Year: 2020
Subjects: Biodiversity
Taxonomy
Animalia
Arthropoda
Insecta
Coleoptera
Chrysomelidae
Agelopsis

description: Genus Agelopsis Jacoby, 1896
Agelopsis Jacoby, 1896: 301 (type species Agelopsis caeruleus Jacoby, 1896, by monotypy); Maulik, 1936: 466 (extended description); Wilcox, 1973: 469 (catalogue); Seeno & Wilcox, 1982: 110; Medvedev & Sprecher-Uebersax, 2005: 313 (key); Beenen, 2010: 469 (catalogue).
Liroetis subgenus Liroetinus Lopatin, 2004: 621 (type species Liroetis belousovi Lopatin, 2004, by original designation); Beenen, 2010: 479 (catalogue). Syn. nov.
Zizonia Chen in Chen et al., 1976: 220 (type species Zizonia tibetana Chen, 1976, by original designation). Syn. nov.
Description. Dorsal side lustrous, metallic bluish, greenish or violet, ventral side, legs and antennae black with slight metallic tint.
Head almost impunctate, smooth or microsculptured, lustrous, nearly glabrous. Labrum transverse, with several pores bearing pale seta. Interantennal space 0.80–1.12 times as wide as antennal socket. Interocular space wide, 2.90–3.88 time as wide as transverse diameter of eye. Frontal tubercles large, subtriangular or transversely trapezoidal, elevated, lustrous, glabrous, impunctate. Vertex separated from frontal tubercles by deep furrow, impunctate, glabrous. Antennae thin, 0.76–1.00 as long as body, antennomeres I–III lustrous, covered with sparse setae, antennomeres IV–XI dull, covered with dense setae.
Pronotum 1.11–1.63 times as wide as long, widest at anterior third, lustrous, almost impunctate or covered with fine punctures. Surface with more or less shallow transverse impression at posterior third. Anterior margin unbordered or with very fine border, posterior margin thinly bordered, lateral margins with wider border. Anterior angles pronounced, posterior angles rectangular or obtusangulate, all angles with setigerous pore bearing long pale seta.
Scutellum wide, subtriangular, with widely rounded apex, impunctate, smooth or microsculptured, glabrous, with rounded apex.
Elytra ca 1.35–1.90 times as long as wide and 0.52–0.72 times as long as body, glabrous, moderately divergent posteriorly (widest at posterior third), densely covered with fine small confused punctures. Humeral calli well developed. Epipleura impunctate, relatively narrow, gradually narrowing in apical two thirds towards apex.
Ventral surface subopaque, sparsely covered with fine punctures and pale setae. Last abdominal ventrite in males with posterior margin with two V-shaped incisions, surface with rounded median impression or, in some spe- cies, last ventrite enlarged with median impression forming shallow channel,. Abdominal ventrites III and IV rarely modified (impressed or forming short proces).
Anterior coxal cavities opened posteriorly. Legs moderately slender. Male metatrochanters sometimes modified. All tibiae with apical spur. Tarsomeres I and II subtriangular. Claws appendiculate.
Aedeagus symmetrical, more or less flat and in lateral view moderately bent.
Females. Tarsi usually slightly narrower than in males. Abdomen not modified, posterior margin of last ventrite entire, without incisions. Spermatheca C-shaped, with more or less gradually narrowing apex, nodulus sphaerical or elongate, covered with transverse wrinkles, ductus spermathecae usually curved. Sternite VIII with apical margin with short setae, disc glabrous. Tignum relatively robust, 1.5–2.2 times longer than sternite VIII. Gonocoxae usually with thin basal apodemes (except A. metallicus).
Differential diagnosis. The genus Agelopsis is characterised by the combination of following characters: anterior coxal cavities open posteriorly, pronotum with transverse impression behind middle, claws appendiculate, middle and posterior tibiae with apical spur, epipleura gradually narrowed towards the apex. The sets of characters to separate Agelopsis from other southeastern Asian genera with transverse pronotal impressions and anterior coxal cavities open are summarized in Tab. 1.
Three Agelopsis species were originally assigned to the genus Liroetis belonging to the group of genera characterized by aedeagus with a dorsal process starting near the base of aedeagan lobe and directed anteriorly (e.g. Bezděk et al. 2014, Bezděk 2016). Moreover, Liroetis species have no transverse impression on the pronotum.
Comments on synonymy. The genus Zizonia was established for Zizonia tibetana described from a single female and the description itself is very superficial and uninformative. It was stated that Zizonia is similar to Luperus Geoffroy, 1762 and Calomicrus Dillwyn, 1829 but due to transverse impression on pronotum resembles Paridea Baly, 1886 and Paragetocera Laboissière, 1929. Explicitely is given that middle and posterior tibiae are without apical spurs (Chen et al. 1976). I had the possibility to study the photograph of the female holotype of Zizonia tibetana and undoubtedly it is congeneric with Agelopsis. The holotype also has the apical spurs on tibiae as was verified by Li-Jie Zhang (2012, pers. comm.). In sum, I propose Zizonia as a new synonym of Agelopsis.
Liroetinus Lopatin, 2004 (type species Liroetis belousovi Lopatin, 2004) was originally proposed as subgenus of Liroetis. However, Liroetis belousovi differs from true Liroetis species in having completely different structure of aedeagus and transverse impression on pronotum. Because Liroetis belousovi well agrees with Agelopsis species, I transfer it to Agelopsis and propose Liroetinus as a new synonym of Agelopsis.
Comments. The enlarged metatrochanters in males of some Agelopsis species (A. metallicus, A. spinipes, and A. traxlerorum sp. nov.) were considered to be a sound production device (Mohamedsaid 2010). As in many galerucine genera the identification of females is difficult and requires the dissection of female genitalia. The identification key is provided from males only.
Distribution. China, Nepal, northeastern India, Myanmar.
description: Published as part of Bezděk, Jan, 2020, Revision of Agelopsis (Coleoptera: Chrysomelidae: Galerucinae), pp. 223-248 in Zootaxa 4731 (2) on pages 224-226, DOI: 10.11646/zootaxa.4731.2.3, http://zenodo.org/record/3637839