Sphenoptera (Deudora) peninsulae Kalashian & Karagyan 2016, sp. nov.
Creators: name: Kalashian, Mark Yu.
name: Karagyan, Gayane H.
Publisher: name: Zenodo
Year: 2016
Subjects: Biodiversity
Taxonomy
Animalia
Arthropoda
Insecta
Coleoptera
Buprestidae
Sphenoptera
Sphenoptera peninsulae

description: Sphenoptera (Deudora) peninsulae sp. nov.
(Figs 1, 3–4)
Type locality. Saudi Arabia, Hejaz.
Type material. HOLOTYPE: ♁, ‘[Saudi Arabia] Hedjaz [Hejaz], Millingen [leg.] [h] // Sharp Coll. / 1905-13 [p]’ (BMNH). ALLOTYPE: ♀, with the same data (BMNH). PARATYPES: 2 ♁♁ 2 ♀♀, with the same data (BMNH, MKCY, NMPC); 1 ♁, ‘ Yemen, Jebel Samara / top of pass / ca. 9700 ft., 3.i.1938 [p] // B.M. Exp. to S.W. Arabia / H. Scott & E.B. Britton / B.M. 1938-246 [p]’ (BMNH).
Description. Body moderately elongate, 2.45–2.60× as long as wide, strongly convex, black with slight bronzy reflection. Body length 8.75–12.00 mm, width 3.40–4.70 mm.
Head rather broad, slightly narrower than pronotum anteriorly; eyes large, moderately convex, slightly projecting beyond contour of head; vertex in male 2.00–2.15, in female 2.10–2.30 times as wide as transverse diameter of eye. Clypeus with arc-shaped incision, in shape of rather wide semicircle. Frons with almost straight sides, very weakly converging posteriorly, flattened or very slightly convex, with pair of slightly separated reliefs approximately at the level of mid-length of eyes. Supraantennal carinae anteriorly strong, posteriorly gradually disappearing and not reaching inner margins of eyes. Surface with rather sparse and inconspicuous micropunctation, reliefs with single small macropunctures, rest of surface of frons with dense and coarse, somewhere confluent macropunctures toward vertex becoming weaker and thinned out. Punctate portions of surface with short dense setae, reliefs with single setae. Antennae in male 1.85–2.05, in female 1.75–1.85 times as long as vertical diameter of eye, serrated from antennomere IV which is nearly equilateral, following antennomeres moderately transverse.
Pronotum 1.60–1.75× as wide as long, widest approximately near anterior 1/3 and/or near acute-angled basal angles. Sides in anterior 1/3 arcuate, posteriorly subparallel, nearly straight or very weakly emarginate. Lateral carinae wide, almost extending to anterior angles of pronotum, visible from above along whole of their length. Anterior margin slightly bisinuate, bordered with indistinct sulcus widely interrupted medially (extending approximately to inner margins of eyes); basal margin bisinuate, with median projection moderately broad with almost rectilinearly truncated apex. Pronotal disc convex, flattened or very slightly depressed along middle in posterior 1/2–2/3, and with two distinct longitudinal depressions situated approximately behind eyes, becoming slightly weaker anteriorly. Pronotal depressions with rough dense macropunctures, medial portion of disc with irregular sparse punctures smaller than in depressions and slightly more dense along middle, laterally macropunctures large, rather flat, somewhere rasp-shaped, near posterior angles of pronotum partly coalescent; micropunctures rather dense and distinct. Scutellum transverse with sides widely arcuate, nearly flat, with few micropunctures.
Elytra 1.76–1.94× as long as wide, near humeri slightly wider than pronotal base, their sides subparallel or very slightly convergent to posterior 2/5, then very slightly arcuate, distally nearly rectilinearly converging to apex. Elytral apices angularly irregularly arcuate, suture with indistinct obtuse tooth. Disc strongly convex, along sides with rather distinct depression, approximately continuing as lateral depression of pronotum, surface with micropunctation similar to that of pronotum, disc with rows of narrow hyphen-like punctures, intervals with irregular rather sparse and small macropunctures, in depressions macropunctures very dense, punctures of rows deeper, parts of surface with few irregular transverse wrinkles. Odd intervals very slightly convex, even intervals flat or very weakly depressed.
Ventral surface laterally with wide stripes of dense whitish setae hiding sculpture which consist of network of thin irregular wrinkles. Prosternal process slightly convex, with few irregular coarse punctures, laterally forming rows near border. Middle portion of sternum with coarse and rather dense irregular punctures posteriorly this structure becoming weaker and on anal ventrite nearly inconspicuous. Metacoxae with hind margin slightly emarginate medially and moderately laterally. Anal ventrite slightly irregularly rounded distally in both sexes, in female slightly narrower than in male.
In male protibiae slightly incurved, meso- and metatibiae nearly straight, all tibiae with inner margin before apex with tooth, rather small in protibiae, strong in meso- and metatibiae. In female tibiae nearly straight, only metatibiae with inner margin slightly emarginate.
Aedeagus as in Fig. 3.
Ovipositor as in Fig. 4.
Differential diagnosis. Closely resembling S. vittaticollis Lucas, 1844 known from North Africa and Israel and to S. ventrisculpta Obenberger, 1916 from Algeria and Tunisia. Both species can be easily distinguished by having pronotal sides nearly regularly arcuate, with narrower lateral carinae, and, especially, by uneven surface of elytra with odd interstriae distinctly convex, rather shiny, almost without macropunctures or wrinkles and even interstriae flattened or depressed, with rough sculpture of macropunctures and irregular wrinkles. In addition, S. ventrisculpta differs in having a more oval body and in nearly indistinct micropunctures of head and pronotum. Sphenoptera vittaticollis differs also in narrower body (2.65–2.90× as long as wide).
Etymology. Named after the Arabian Peninsula where the type material comes from, noun in genitive case.
Distribution. Saudi Arabia and Yemen.
description: Published as part of Kalashian, Mark Yu. & Karagyan, Gayane H., 2016, Two new species of Sphenoptera from South-West Asia (Coleoptera: Buprestidae: Chrysochroinae), pp. 17-22 in Acta Entomologica Musei Nationalis Pragae 56 (1) on pages 18-20, DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.4503889