Sucinolivolia torpida Bukejs, Biondi & Alekseev, 2015, sp. nov.
Creators: name: Bukejs, Andris
name: Biondi, Maurizio
name: Alekseev, Vitalii I.
Publisher: name: Zenodo
Year: 2015
Subjects: Biodiversity
Taxonomy
Animalia
Arthropoda
Insecta
Coleoptera
Chrysomelidae
Sucinolivolia
Sucinolivolia torpida

description: Sucinolivolia torpida sp. nov.
(Figs 1–8)
Material examined. Holotype: Nr. “1219-1” [CCHH]; male. A rather clear beetle with exposed apex of aedeagus and hind wings. The specimen is missing its left elytron, and is partly obscured by "milky" opacity dorsally. The specimen is included in a polished piece of transparent amber, which is yellow in color. The amber piece is embedded in a block of polyester resin with dimensions 18 x 16 x 6 mm. Syninclusions include: one Nematocera (Diptera) about 0.8 mm in length, nine trichomes (“stellate hairs”), and small pieces of organic material.
Type strata. Baltic Amber, Upper Eocene, Prussian Formation (Priabonian). Estimated age: 37.2–33.9 Ma.
Type locality. Yantarny settlement (formerly Palmnicken), Sambian (Samland) Peninsula, the Kaliningrad region, Russia.
Description. Body length ca. 1.9 mm; elongate and weakly convex dorsally; reddish-brown; head, pronotum and elytra covered with short, fine, sparse pubescence, metaventrite and abdomen with more inconspicuous pubescence.
Head hypognathous, slightly convex in lateral view; including compound eyes, head is narrower than anterior margin of pronotum; frons and vertex almost flat, without distinct punctures. Eyes large, entire, hemispherical, with distinct facets; distance between eyes distinctly longer than transverse diameter of one eye. Temples very short, head retracted into prothorax almost up to posterior margins of eyes. Frontal carina narrow, convex. Frontal tubercles elongated, moderately wide, contiguous, convex, smooth and shiny; well delineated from vertex and frontal carina. Labrum transverse, with straight anterior margin. Clypeus with widely and shallowly emarginate anterior margin, and protruding anterolateral corners. Maxillary palpi slender, 4-segmented; palpomere 4 spindleshaped, about 2.2 times as long as wide; palpomere 3 nearly quadrate, 0.6 times as long as palpomere 4. Antennae 11-segmented, filiform, slightly enlarged apically; relatively short, extending to overlap basal one-third of elytra; ratio of body length/antenna length nearly equal to 2. Scape cylindrical, 1.7 times as long as wide; pedicel and antennomere 1 subequal in size; antennomere 3 distinctly narrower and about 0.83 times as long as antennomere 2; antennomeres 1–2 and 8–11 are wider and more robust, while antennomeres 3–7 are distinctly more slender, and slightly dilated distally; apex of last antennomere pointed. Relative length ratios of antennomeres 1–11 equal to 13:13:11:12:15:12:15:13:11:11:15. Distance between antennal sockets nearly equal to diameter of one socket.
Pronotum transverse and weakly convex; widest at anterior margin, slightly narrowed posteriad; without longitudinal basal impressions, and likely without antebasal transverse impression (not clearly visible because of "milky" opacity in amber); with oval, shallow transverse impression medio-laterally on each side. Pronotal punctation sparse, shallow and inconspicuous. Base of pronotum distinctly narrower than elytral base. Lateral pronotal margins almost straight, not crenulated, with narrow bordering; posterior margin convex, with distinct narrow bordering; anterior margin straight, without bordering. Posterior angles obtuse; anterior angles nearly rectangular. Anterior and posterior angles with pores but setae are absent. Anterolateral callosities weak.
Scutellum large, triangular, impunctate. Elytra weakly convex, subparallel. Elytral punctation strongly and densely impressed, apparently arranged in 10 regular striae reaching elytral apex, and shortened sutural and lateral striae in basal one-fourth of elytra; punctures slightly conflated within apical one-third of elytra; distance between punctures in striae smaller than diameter of one puncture; interstriae flat, with distance between striae about 1–2 times diameter of one puncture. Elytral apices rounded. Humeral calli well-developed, distinctly protruding. Epipleura narrow, nearly vertical, reaching half of elytral length. Metathoracic wings fully developed.
Procoxal cavities closed posteriorly. Metaventrite transverse, slightly convex with flattened disc; shiny, with small and sparse punctation, and distance between punctures distinctly larger than diameter of puncture. Metepisternum with nearly straight lateral margins, anterior and posterior margins oblique, about 5.4 times as long as wide.
Abdomen with five visible ventrites; ventrite 1 longer than ventrites 2–4 combined, ventrite 5 regularly rounded, without incisions. Relative length ratio of ventrites 1–5 equal to 25:7:5:4:9. Medial part of ventrites 2–4 with fine, sparse punctures (smaller than punctation of metasternum), and ventrite 1 appears impunctate.
Legs robust, glabrous, with small punctures. Procoxae subspherical; mesocoxae oval; metacoxae transverse, forming elongate oval, widely separated with distance between metacoxae nearly equal to transverse diameter of metacoxa. Metafemora slightly swollen, about 2.8 times as long as wide. Femora and tibiae nearly equal in length. Metafemorae 1.6 times as wide as metatibiae. Tibiae slightly curved, dilated distally, with short setation apically; metatibiae about 4.1 times as long as wide, with short apical spine. All tarsi distinctly dilated. Tarsomere 3 of all tarsi deeply bilobed; tarsomere 4 subcylindrical. Relative length of mesotarsomeres 1–4 equal to 5:5:7:8. Metatarsi attached to apices of metatibiae. Metatarsomere 1 short, slightly longer than metatarsomere 2; relative length of metatarsomeres 1–4 equal to 7:6:7:9. Tarsal claws appendiculate, with large tooth basally.
Median lobe of aedeagus with flattened, pointed and symmetrical apex.
Etymology. The specific epithet of this new species stems from the Latin word torpidus, meaning “immobilized, torpid, paralyzed”.
description: Published as part of Bukejs, Andris, Biondi, Maurizio & Alekseev, Vitalii I., 2015, Sucinolivolia torpida — a new genus and species of flea-beetles (Coleoptera: Chrysomelidae: Galerucinae) from Baltic amber, pp. 119-126 in Zootaxa 4058 (1) on pages 120-124, DOI: 10.11646/zootaxa.4058.1.7, http://zenodo.org/record/239679