Research Article |
Corresponding author: Sergio Aloquio ( sergio.aloquio@gmail.com ) Academic editor: Gabriel L. F. Mejdalani
© 2017 Sergio Aloquio, Cristiano Lopes-Andrade.
This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY 4.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
Citation:
Aloquio S, Lopes-Andrade C (2017) A new species of Lelegeis (Coleoptera: Tenebrionidae: Diaperini) from the Atlantic Forest of Brazil. Zoologia 34: 1-5. https://doi.org/10.3897/zoologia.34.e19990
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Lelegeis Champion, 1886 occurs only in the Neotropical region and comprises four species: L. aeneipennis Champion, 1886 from Mexico; L. apicalis Laporte & Brullé, 1831 from Cuba; L. hispaniolae Triplehorn, 1962 from Haiti and the Dominican Republic; and L. nigrifrons (Chevrolat, 1878) occurring in Brazil, Mexico, Panama, Peru and Venezuela. Here, Lelegeis pytanga sp. nov. is described based on specimens collected in the Atlantic Forest of Brazil, and the first detailed description of the sclerites of the male and female terminalia of Lelegeis is produced. The new species can be easily distinguished from the other Lelegeis by its dull reddish brown to reddish orange elytral coloration, while the remaining body surface is dull black. The morphology of Lelegeis and its generic boundaries within Diaperinae are discussed.
Darkling beetle, Diaperinae , host fungi, Southeast Brazil
Lelegeis Champion, 1886 was proposed by Champion (
The main and probably only feature that allows the separation of Lelegeis from the morphologically similar genus Platydema Laporte & Brullé, 1831 is the abnormally large and flattened basal protarsomere of the males (
About two thirds of the individuals of Lelegeis pytanga sp. nov. were collected between 2014 and 2017 at “Mata da Biologia”, “Mata do Paraíso” and “Parque Nacional do Caparaó”, which are remnants of the Atlantic Forest biome in Southeast Brazil. Additional individuals found in the collection of Instituto Oswaldo Cruz were collected in the Atlantic Forest of the state of Rio de Janeiro. Host fungi of the individuals collected by us were identified to species whenever possible.
Examination and dissection of adults were conducted under a Zeiss Stemi 2000-C stereomicroscope. Sclerites of the female terminalia, including the spermatheca, were stained with a solution of 0.5% Chlorazol Black E in 85% alcohol to enhance contrast. Whole mount preparations of dissected sclerites were made using a water-soluble mounting media based on polyvinyl alcohol and lactic acid. Slides were photographed under a Zeiss AxioLab compound microscope equipped with a Zeiss AxioCam MRc. Adults were photographed under a Zeiss Discovery V20 stereomicroscope with a Zeiss AxioCam 506, and final images were the result of montaging 25 to 40 image slices at different focal lengths using the extended focus module of Zeiss ZEN 2012 software.
The description of L. pytanga sp. nov. was based mostly on the male holotype, except for the description of the female terminalia, which was based on a paratype. The terms for the external morphology, including sclerites of the abdominal terminalia, follow
The labels were printed in white paper, unless otherwise specified. Label data are cited verbatim in quotation marks; a column separates each line of a label and a backslash separates different labels of a specimen. Square brackets are used to denote our comments on label data. The number, gender and depository of specimens bearing these labels are stated immediately before the label data.
Acronyms of depositories. (AMBC) Ayr Bello private collection, Rio de Janeiro, RJ, Brazil (Ayr de Moura Bello); (CEIOC) Coleção Entomológica do Instituto Oswaldo Cruz, FIOCRUZ, Rio de Janeiro, RJ, Brazil (Jane Costa); (CELC) Coleção Entomológica do Laboratório de Sistemática e Biologia de Coleoptera, Viçosa, MG, Brazil (Cristiano Lopes-Andrade); (CEMT) Seção de Entomologia da Coleção Zoológica, Departamento de Biologia e Zoologia, Universidade Federal do Mato Grosso, Cuiabá, MT, Brazil (Fernando Z. Vaz-de-Mello); (CERPE) Coleção Entomológica da Universidade Federal Rural de Pernambuco, Recife, PE, Brazil (Paschoal C. Grossi)
Estação de Pesquisa, Treinamento e Educação Ambiental Mata do Paraíso (EPTEA Mata do Paraíso), Viçosa, state of Minas Gerais, Brazil, 20°48’08”S, 42°51’30”W.
Lelegeis pytanga sp. nov. can be easily distinguished from the other species of the genus by its dull reddish brown to reddish orange elytral coloration, while the remaining body surface is dull black. Lelegeis nigrifons is light colored with dark spots, L. hispaniolae is entirely shiny dark reddish brown, L. apicalis is shiny dark brown and L. aeneipennis is shiny testaceous.
Male, holotype (Figs
Male holotype (in mm). TL = 6.48, PL = 1.36, PW = 3.44, EL = 5.20, EW = 4.00, GD = 2.64; ratios: GD/EW = 0.66, TL/EW = 1.62. Male paratypes (in mm; n = 7). TL = 6.32–8.00 (7.19 ± 0.58), PL = 1.28–1.76 (1.52 ± 0.18), PW = 3.28–4.16 (3.73 ± 0.33), EL = 5.04–6.40 (5.67 ± 0.44), EW = 4.00–5.04 (4.54 ± 0.32), GD = 2.56–3.12 (2.85 ± 0.17); ratios: GD/EW = 0.59–0.68 (0.63 ± 0.03), TL/EW = 1.54–1.62 (1.58 ± 0.02). Female paratypes (in mm; n = 11). TL = 6.56–7.60 (7.27 ± 0.43), PL = 1.28–1.76 (1.60 ± 0.15), PW = 3.36–4.00 (3.76 ± 0.26), EL = 4.96–6.00 (5.66 ± 0.34), EW = 4.08–5.20 (4.67 ± 0.41), GD = 2.72–3.12 (2.93 ± 0.12); ratios: GD/EW = 0.55–0.73 (0.63 ± 0.06), TL/EW = 1.46–1.63 (1.56 ± 0.06).
Elytra varying in color from reddish brown to reddish orange.
Holotype, male (CELC), labeled “BRASIL: MG, Viçosa; Mata do Paraíso; 11.x.2016; C. Lopes-Andrade & I. Souza-Gonçalves\ex Hydnopolyporus fimbriatus\HOLOTYPE Lelegeis pytanga Aloquio & Lopes-Andrade [red label]”. Paratypes as follow: 1 female (CELC) labeled “BRASIL: MG, Viçosa; Mata do Paraíso; 11.x.2016; C. Lopes-Andrade & I. Souza-Gonçalves\ex Hydnopolyporus fimbriatus”; 1 male (CELC) labeled “BRASIL: MG, Viçosa; Mata do Paraíso; 17.v.2014; leg. C. Lopes-Andrade et al.\ex Favolus tenuiculus”; 1 male and 2 females (CELC) labeled “BRASIL: MG, Viçosa; Mata da Biologia, 18.ii.2015; leg. S. Aloquio, A. Orsetti & M. Bento; ex Favolus tenuiculus”; 1 male (CELC) labeled “BRASIL: MG, Viçosa; Mata do Paraíso; 03.ii.2014; LabCol leg.”; 1 female (CELC) labeled “BRASIL: MG, Viçosa; Mata da Biologia; 26.x.2016; Orsetti & Pecci-Maddalena leg.\ex Lentinus brumalis”; 1 male (CELC) labeled “BRASIL: MG, Alto Caparaó; PARNA do Caparaó; Vale Verde 1200m; 06.xii.2016; Aloquio & Orsetti leg.\ex Favolus tenuiculus”; 3 females (1 AMBC, 1 CEMT and 1 CERPE) labeled “BRASIL: MG, Viçosa; EPTEA Mata do Paraíso; 14–15.xii.2016; ‘trilha do pesquisador, perto das jabuticabeiras’; I. Pecci-Maddalena & C. Lopes-Andrade leg.\ex Favolus tenuiculus”; 1 female (CELC) labeled “BRASIL: MG, Viçosa; Mata da Biologia; 26.i.2017; Aloquio & Gomes leg.\ex Favolus tenuiculus”; 1 male (CEIOC) labeled “USINA TIJUCA; RIO DE JANEIRO; P BOHRNHEIM; 2/X/1963 [handwritten]\COLEÇÃO FIOCRUZ”; 3 males and 3 females (CEIOC) labeled “Itatiaia; RJ – BRASIL; III-1933 [handwritten]; J. F. Zikán\Coleção J F. Zikan”. All paratypes are additionally labeled “PARATYPE Lelegeis pytanga Aloquio & Lopes-Andrade [yellow label]”
Specimens from Viçosa were collected once in Hydnopolyporus fimbriatus (Cooke) Reid (Meripilaceae) and Lentinus brumalis (Pers.) Zmitr. (Polyporaceae), and four times in Favolus tenuiculus P. Beauv. Larvae were not found and the number of individuals in each basidiome was low, thus these cannot be considered breeding records.
The species name “pytanga” comes from the Tupi-Guarani, the most widely distributed indigenous language in Brazil, and means “red” or “reddish”, in reference to the elytral color. The term “pytanga” is not Latinized and its ending is unchanged, so it does not agree in gender with the genus name.
We wish to express our thanks to Artur Orsetti, Igor Souza-Gonçalves, Ítalo Pecci-Maddalena, Matheus Bento and Walysson Gomes for collecting specimens, and to the staff of CEIOC for managing the loan of Lelegeis deposited there. We specially thank Maxim Nabozhenko for the Russian to English translation of Medvedev’s article about antennal sensilla in Tenebrionidae. The senior author thanks the Graduate Program in Ecology (Universidade Federal de Viçosa) for the academic support during his doctoral degree. Financial support was provided by Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa do Estado de Minas Gerais (FAPEMIG; Edital 01/2016, demanda universal, APQ-02675-16; doctoral grant to the senior author) and Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico (CNPq; research grant to CLA 307116/2015-8). We also thank the associate editor Gabriel Mejdalani for the editorial process and two anonymous reviewers for valuable corrections to the text.