Mephritus punctulatus Galileo, Martins & Santos-Silva, 2014, sp. nov.
Creators: name: Galileo, Maria Helena M.
name: Martins, Ubirajara R.
name: Santos-Silva, Antonio
Publisher: name: Zenodo
Year: 2014
Subjects: Biodiversity
Taxonomy
Animalia
Arthropoda
Insecta
Coleoptera
Cerambycidae
Mephritus
Mephritus punctulatus

description: Mephritus punctulatus, sp. nov.
(Fig. 2)
Descriptions. Integument dark-brown. Frons and vertex sparsely punctate, covered with silky, whitish pubescence. Superior ocular lobes with six rows of ommatidia. Antennae reach elytral apex near middle of antennomere X. Antennomeres III to VI with conspicuous apical spines, progressively shorter towards apex; antennomere VII and VIII with spicule. Scape somewhat swollen toward apex; with contrasting piliferous punctures. Antennomere III longer than scape. Antenna pubescent, antennomere III with contrasting setigerous punctures.
Prothorax with lateral tubercle prominent with gibbosity near anterior margin; pubescence yellowish-white, elongate, dense, interspersed with setigerous punctures. Pronotum with four prominent lateral gibbosities, anterior two round, posterior two oval; central gibbosity, on posterior third, slightly conspicuous with short, narrow, longitudinal, glabrous stripe. Pronotum covered by long, yellowish-white pubescence, interspersed with coarse, sparse, contrasting punctures around tubercles and laterally. Prosternum with silky, dense pubescence, interspersed with coarse punctures, sparse at middle. Mesosternum, metasternum and sternites with smaller, sparse punctures, covered with silky pubescence. Scutellum with silky, sparse pubescence.
Elytra finely, sparsely punctate; covered by very short, yellowish-white pubescence, interspersed with piliferous punctures with wide glabrous edges, subequal in diameter to half width of pedicel, organized in four dorsal rows. Elytral apices subrounded marginally, narrow, obliquely truncate near sutural spicule.
Legs pubescent with small, contrasting piliferous punctures. Femora subcylindrical. Metatarsomere I as long as II and III combined.
Abdominal ventrites microsculptured; with silky, gray-whitish pubescence, mixed with long, thin, sparse setae; around almost all long setae, small, shiny, smooth, slightly depressed (puncture-like), sub-circular, glabrous area (mainly on abdominal ventrites (I–IV); apex of abdominal ventrite V slightly emarginated.
Measurements in mm, holotype and paratype female. Total length 23.0–22.8; prothorax length, 4.1–4.0; prothorax width, 4.8–4.9; elytron length, 16.7–16.8; humeral width, 6.4–6.3.
Etymology. Latin, punctulatus = punctured, referring to elytra with contrasting punctures.
Type material. Holotype female, BOLIVIA, Santa Cruz, 20 km N Camiri, road to Eyti, 1250m, 6–8 km E, Hwy 9, 1952’S 6329’W, 5, 6, 10.XII.2012, Wappes, Bonaso & Skillman col. (MNKM). Paratypes (10): 6 females with same data as holotype (ACMS (4), MZSP (2)); 4 females, Cordillera Prov., road to Eyti, 10.5 km NE of Highway 9, 22 km NNE of Camiri, 1140m, 1950.56’ S 6329.05’ W, 3–4.XII.2013, Lingafelter col., lights [SWLC (3) USNM (1)].
Remarks. Mephritus punctulatus sp. nov. in Martins (2005) keys to couplet 6 as M. adelphus (Martins, 1973). With the latter it shares the elytra with contrasting piliferous punctures subequal in diameter to half the width of the pedicel. It differs by the dark-brown integument and rounded elytral apices. In M. adelphus the head and pronotum are dark-brown, the elytra and femora are yellowish-brown and the elytral apex is armed with a small spicule at marginal angle.
description: Published as part of Galileo, Maria Helena M., Martins, Ubirajara R. & Santos-Silva, Antonio, 2014, New species of Elaphidiini (Coleoptera, Cerambycidae) from Bolivia, pp. 275-281 in Zootaxa 3884 (3) on pages 277-278, DOI: 10.11646/zootaxa.3884.3.6, http://zenodo.org/record/229355