Tarphius relictus Borges & Serrano, new species
Creators: name: Borges, Paulo A. V.
name: Amorim, Isabel R.
name: Terzopoulou, Sofia
name: Rigal, François
name: Emerson, Brent C.
name: Serrano, Artur R. M.
Publisher: name: Zenodo
Year: 2017
Subjects: Biodiversity
Taxonomy
Animalia
Arthropoda
Insecta
Coleoptera
Zopheridae
Tarphius
Tarphius relictus

description: Tarphius relictus Borges & Serrano, new species
(Fig. 9)
Tarphius azoricus in Borges (1990, pp. 99, 112) (Terceira Isl.) Tarphius azoricus in Borges (1991, p. 2) (Terceira Isl.)
Tarphius azoricus in Borges et al. (2005b, p. 207) (Terceira Isl.) Tarphius azoricus in Oromí et al. (2010, p. 232) (Terceira Isl.) Tarphius azoricus Amorim et al. (2012, Fig. 2) (Terceira Isl.)
Type locality. The Azores, Terceira Island, Fontinhas.
Type material. Type material. HOLOTYPE, male, deposited at DTPC, labeled: Fontinhas, Terceira, Açores (UTM 26S 488329, 4288597) (Altitude: 208 m), 20/06/2006 (collected by hand; Paulo A. V. Borges leg.). PARATYPES, same locality as holotype, 5/05/1990 (2 exx.), 8/05/1990 (1 ex.), 20/06/2006 (20 exx.), Paulo A. V. Borges & Isabel R. Amorim leg., Material deposited in FCULC, SNM and DTPC.
Etymology. The name refers to the highly reduced area of exotic forest, surrounded by pastureland, where this species lives, the disappearance of which threatens it with extinction.
Diagnosis (Fig. 9). Small to medium species (2.34–3.48 mm; mean: 2.72± 0.34 mm); body dorsal surface uniform shining dark brown, antennae, mouth-parts and legs of a slightly clearer hue; body strongly arched (convex); pronotum small and narrower than elytra, disc with dense, large rounded granules, each one with a yellowish or brownish long, thin, erect rigid needle-like acuminate seta (Fig. 4 B), but less needled than T. tornvalli (Fig. 4 A); elytra humeral angle sharply pronounced. Differs from the most related species in some morphometrics (see Appendix S5):
- differs from T. furtadoi sp. nov. in being smaller, and in having a larger L elytra /L pronotum, W/L elytra and W/L pronotum ratios; and
- differs from T. tornvalli in being smaller, and in having a larger W/L elytra and W/L pronotum ratios.
Description. Body length of holotype: 3.10 mm; small to medium size (length 2.34–3.48 mm, mean: 2.72± 0.34 mm); width 1.37–1.7 mm (mean: 1.57± 0.11 mm), body convex and subquadrate-ovate, dark brown, setose, with rigid setae and large granules.
Head: Genae parallel; anterior clypeal margin straight; vertices protrude under the anterior margin of pronotum; surface dark brown with dense medium granules, except in clypeus which is more or less smooth, each one with one semi-erect fine hair-like seta slightly directed anteriorly eyes clearly protruding, glabrous; antennae with segment II smaller than III, segment III almost 2x longer than IV, IV slightly longer than V, segments VII–IX as long as wide, compact club 2-segmented (segments X and XI); mouth-parts brown or light brown showing the general pattern of the genus.
Pronotum: Highly transverse, on average 1.76 times as broad as long, but quite variable (1.30x to 2.08x); surface dark brown, widened in the middle; in general, shape of pronotum less rounded than T. tornvalli (cf. Figs 9, 10 and 7, 8); anterior margin deeply bisinuate, anterior angles strongly protruding and acuminate; hind margin largely bisinuate, in middle broadly produced rearwards; lateral margins arcuate with two irregular rows of long, fine and acuminate setae (20–25 each one, smaller than T. tornvalli, and tending to be less acuminated) (Fig. 10), slightly sinuate just before the posterior angles which are clearly prominent; disc with a clear median longitudinal sulcus, half posterior-lateral region with a slight nodule; a distinct transverse channel just before the extreme base between the two lateral notches; lateral surface variable in terms of flatness; dorsal upper surface with dense distinct large rounded granules, gradually diminishing in diameter to the sides, each one with one rigid erect subobtuse yellowish seta (Fig. 10); ratios width pronotum/width elytra 0.90±0.04 and length pronotum/length elytra 0.52±0.15 (see Appendix S6).
Elytra: On average 0.98 times as broad as long, but quite variable (0.91x to 1.12x); in general 1.11 times (mean) broader than pronotum, but less variable (1.04x to 1.17x) than in T. tornvalli; disc concolorous (reddish dark brown to dark brown), convex, rugosely seriate-punctate, and wrinkled transversally on dorsal surface which is covered with dense granules, each one with an erect rigid needle-like acuminate yellowish or golden seta (Fig. 4 B), but less needled than in T. tornvalli (Fig. 4 A); nodules or gibbosities very distinct with a pattern formula 2, 3, 2, 1, covered with setae more aggregate, conferring a pom-pom appearance.
Ventral side. Prosternum as granulose as mesosternum and metasternum; grooves on anterior half of prosternal sides slightly present.
Legs. Tibia normal not expanded apically; tarsi 4-segmented, simple, first three tarsomeres of all legs and in both sexes covered ventrally with several very long hyaline fine setae.
Aedeagus: Similar to T. tornvalli (see Fig. 6 in Gillerfors 1985).
Bionomics. Most specimens were collected under the bark of dead trunks from exotic trees (Acacia sp.). Some were collected in pitfall traps using moldy bread as bait.
description: Published as part of Borges, Paulo A. V., Amorim, Isabel R., Terzopoulou, Sofia, Rigal, François, Emerson, Brent C. & Serrano, Artur R. M., 2017, Cryptic diversity in the Azorean beetle genus Tarphius Erichson, 1845 (Coleoptera: Zopheridae): An integrative taxonomic approach with description of four new species, pp. 401-449 in Zootaxa 4236 (3) on pages 414-415, DOI: 10.11646/zootaxa.4236.3.1, http://zenodo.org/record/322231