Amplioscapus mirabilis L. R. Kirkendall 2024, new species
Creators: name: Kirkendall, Lawrence R.
Publisher: name: Zenodo
Year: 2024
Subjects: Biodiversity
Taxonomy
Animalia
Arthropoda
Insecta
Coleoptera
Curculionidae
Amplioscapus
Amplioscapus mirabilis

description: Amplioscapus mirabilis, new speciesurn:lsid:zoobank.org:act: BEEFF2D5-67EB-4E8C-A8BE-A8FA721E7BD3
(Figure 1, male, and Figure 2, female)
Male: 5.0 mm long (4.6–5.2, SE = 0.05), 2.3 × long as wide (range 2.2–2.4); holotype 4.9 mm long, 2.3 × long as wide. Mature specimens with head, pronotum and most of elytra dark reddish-brown, basal ¼–1/5 of elytral disc light brown.
Head with frons weakly longitudinally impressed, more clearly impressed below level of antennal insertions, punctures confused-rugulose and bearing scattered short erect fine setae; frons angularly separated from vertex. Eye rounded, about twice as long as deep. Antenna inserted just above lower level of eye. Antennal scape 1.8–2.2 × as wide as long, scape width 1.5 × as long as club length.
Pronotum 0.9–1.0 × as long as wide, parallel-sided, femoral grooves deep but scarcely visible from above, disc smooth, shining; most of disc densely covered with variously sized tiny shallow punctures, a narrow transverse shining band with few punctures located slightly behind the anterior margin of the femoral groove, scattered short setae in the anterolateral corners and along the anterior margin, median line extending from close to base to middle of pronotum, its basal half in a broad, shallow groove.
Elytra together 1.3–1.5 × as long as wide, 1.6–1.9 × as long as pronotum, sides slightly convex but obliquely narrowing posteriorly (at declivity), widest slightly before base of declivity; all interstriae flattened at base but oddnumbered interstriae raised for most of their length, raised interstriae triangular in cross-section, interstriae 1, 3 and 5 serrate with the point of each serration accompanied by a single seta, surfaces of raised interstriae finely areolate, where interstriae are raised the interspaces between them formed by flattening of even-numbered interstriae. Interstriae 2 and 4 flattened at base but narrowing acutely and ending before mid-length of elytra, interstriae 2 notably shorter than interstriae 4, interstriae 5 longer than 4 but much shorter than interstriae 3, terminating well before declivity. Strial punctures large, contiguous. Declivity slightly rounded, descending at about a 45° angle, interstriae 1 ending at the commencement of the declivity, interstriae 3 running partway down declivity, three serrations longer than interstriae 1. Corners of the narrowed declivital apex with a short, partially carinate projection that does not reach beyond the apical margin, formed by an extension of interstriae 9. Abdomen with no special modifications of ventrites. Anterior margin of impression on metanepisternum and metaventrite with a variable number of often numerous minute spines on each segment, with from 4–8 small spines or teeth on the metanepisternum and from 1–9 on the metaventrite, those nearest the border between the two segments often being larger and sometimes bifid. Protibiae with seven transverse rugae on the anterior face, including the outermost under the tibial spur, that are more than ½ the width of the tibia. An eighth ruga (nearest the body) sometimes is longer than ½ the width but often is shorter. Metacoxa simple, no derived modifications.
Female: See figure 2. Size 5.7 mm long (5.4–6.0, SE = 0.05), 2.7 × long as wide (range 2.7–2.8), color similar to that of male but about twice as much of the elytral base being pale and with less contrast between paler and darker portions of elytra.
Head with frons very deeply concave, shining, glabrous, with a black vertical median carina on upper half, carina with a tooth above; antennae inserted at a point even with top of eye. Antennal scape very wide (expanded downwards), 2.6–2.9 × as wide as long, width 3.0–3.2 × as long as club length, outer surface slightly convex, inner surface deeply concave, inner surface with some long plumose golden setae, outer margin completely fringed with dense plumose inward-curving golden setae.
Pronotum 0.9–1.1 × as long as wide, with a pair of very large mycangial pores on either side of the anterior end of the median line that are separated by slightly more than the width of a pore, the pores nearly completely ringed by long forward-pointing semirecumbent golden setae, these setae most dense and most numerous on the outer sides of the pores.
Spines bordering the metanepisternum-metaventrite impression similar in number but smaller than those of males. Elytra together 1.7–1.9 × as long as wide, 1.8–2.0 × as long as pronotum, sides nearly parallel until declivity, interstriae 1 narrowly carinate, interstriae 2 narrowly rounded, but other interstriae similarly broadly rounded, all interstriae reaching declivity; declivity sloping initially at about a 45° angle but last ¼ abruptly vertical, vertical portion finely reticulate with scattered granules. Protibiae with 8–9 transverse rugae on the anterior face, including the outermost under the tibial spur; these are more finely carinate than those of males, and the 7 th, 8 th and 9 th (counting inwards, from distal end of protibiae) often broken into several contiguous segments.
Both sexes with a stridulatory apparatus, as in all other Platypodini genera as far as is known. Male and female with a median anvil-shaped plectrum on the anterior margin of the seventh abdominal tergite and a short stridulatory file parallel to the suture and near the apex of the left elytron.
Holotype. Male. “ PERU: Loreto, Compamento San Jacinto, 2° 18’ 44.85” S, 75°51’ 46” W [-2.312, -75.863], 175–215 m, 3–12.VII.1993, R. Leschen, ex FIT “/ [green label with camera symbol] “Atkinson 2018” / [redbordered white holotype label] “Holotype Amplioscapus mirabilis L. R. Kirkendall ” (Fig. 3A). [CMNC].
Allotype. Female. Same labels as male, except [orange-bordered white allotype label] “Allotype Amplioscapus mirabilis L. R. Kirkendall ” (Fig. 3B). [CMNC].
Paratypes. 148 paratypes, 77 males and 71 females, with yellow-bordered white paratype labels. Full details about the paratypes are presented in Table 2. Most paratypes (135) are from Peru, but a few were collected in Ecuador (10), Brazil (2) or French Guiana (1). Specimens are mainly from lower elevations, but the range is from <200–1300 m. The earliest known collection is from 1954, from Peru.
Other specimens seen. Fourteen other individuals as follows. BRAZIL, Pará, Altamira, XI. 1974, Malaise trap, J. F. Reinert (8 males, 3 females; FSCA). BRAZIL, Pará, Maraba, near Bacuri, 26.X.–1.XI.1974, J. F. Reinert (1 male, 1 female; FSCA). BRAZIL, Rondonia, 7 km NW Costa Marquez, 16.XI.1986, Malaise trap, R. Wilkenson (1 male; FSCA).
Etymology. The species epithet mirabilis is Latin for amazing, marvellous, extraordinary, and reflects my reaction upon seeing this remarkable species. Adjective.
Distribution. I have seen specimens from the Amazonian forests, from Ecuador, Brazil, and Peru, and a single specimen from the contiguous Guiana Shield forests of French Guiana, at elevations ranging from near sea level to 1300 m (Table 2). I have not come across any specimens collected from outside these two drainage basins.
Biology. The biology of A. mirabilis is largely unknown since most were collected from flight intercept traps or Malaise traps. No specimens are known to have been collected from lights or light traps, suggesting that the species is strictly diurnal. At the CICRA field station, specimens were excised from two trap trees each of Virol a and Brosimum and one of Ficus; none were collected from the Protium or Cecropia trap trees, but the species has been collected from Cecropia elsewhere in Peru (Tables 1, 2). Known host families are Moraceae, Urticaceae, and Myristicaceae (Table 1). While the first two families are related, the latter is from a different order of plants, suggesting that A. mirabilis is highly polyphagous with respect to host plant taxonomy. There is currently no evidence of preference with regards to breeding material size: the CICRA specimens were collected from diameters ranging from small trunks to branches as small as 4 cm (Table 1). Amplioscapus mirabilis has been collected both from freshly felled trees and from firewood (Table 1). Large numbers of individuals were collected both from the CICRA study and from various short periods of Malaise trapping at a variety of sites (Table 1), suggesting that this previously unknown species is quite common.
Sexual dimorphism. Conspecific males differ considerably from females in most Neotropical Platypodinae species; sexual dimorphism can be so dramatic that males and females that we now know to be conspecific have occasionally been described as separate species or even placed in separate genera or separate tribes (Kirkendall 2017; Kirkendall in press a). Visible sexual dimorphism in A. mirabilis includes differences in body size and shape and in the head, antennae, pronotum, legs, and elytra. Females are longer than males, with both the pronotum and elytra being slightly longer, and slenderer. For the head, the antennal insertion is much higher in females than males, and the sexes differ markedly in the frons, which is deeply concave and shining and has a median carina in the female but is weakly concave, not shining, and with no carina in males (Figs 1C, 2C). They differ in the degree of expansion of the antennal scape: the female scape is about 2 × as wide as that of the male (Figs 1C, 2C). Only females have mycangial pores (Fig. 2A). The tiny spines bordering the metanepisternum-metaventrite impression are consistently smaller in females as is typical for other Platypodini (Kirkendall, personal observation). The species exhibits the usual elytral dimorphism of Platypodini: while odd- and even-numbered interstriae in males often differ
(especially in length), females usually have all or most interstriae similar in form and running the entire length of the elytra (Figs 1A, 2A). Finally, as is normal for Platypodinae, male and female elytral declivities differ considerably (Figs 1D, 2D).
description: Published as part of Kirkendall, Lawrence R., 2024, A new genus and species of Platypodini pinhole borers from South America (Coleoptera, Curculionidae, Platypodinae), pp. 83-95 in Zootaxa 5432 (1) on pages 86-90, DOI: 10.11646/zootaxa.5432.1.6, http://zenodo.org/record/10898554