Review of the genus Dilophotes Waterhouse (Coleoptera: Lycidae) of the Palaearctic Region and Indochina
Author
Bic, Vlastislav
text
Zootaxa
2002
59
1
26
journal article
51440
10.5281/zenodo.155977
2d6c6f0d-94a5-447b-82d5-87c336a97584
11755326
155977
Dilophotes
Waterhouse, 1879
Dilophotes
Waterhouse, 1879
: 75
.
Type
species:
Dilophotes exilis
Waterhouse 1878
: 116
(by original designation).
Stenolycus
Ohbayashi, 1956
: 58,
syn. n.
Type
species:
Stenolycus
ohirai
Ohbayashi, 1956
: 58
(by original designation).
Diagnosis
.
Dilophotes
,
together with
Macrolycus
Waterhouse, 1878
, forms the tribe Macrolycini (
Lycinae
). Macrolycini are easily recognised by cleft claws and the structure of pronotal carinae (
Figs 6 8
). These genera differ externally in the number of longitudinal elytral costae.
Dilophotes
has costa 1 considerably shorter than costa 2 and 4, costa 3 is vestigial and distinct only at the very base of elytra. Costae 2 and 4 reach the apical part of elytra (
Fig. 3
).
Macrolycus
has four longitudinal costae on each elytron, although some of them may be very weak, especially apically.
Dilophotes
often have a considerably sclerotized and exposed internal sacs, which sometimes form a very complex structure (
Figs 12
,
15, 18, 20
). In addition, the phallobase of
Dilophotes
is long and asymmetrical (
Figs 14, 16, 22
).
Macrolycus
has a simple, slender, membranous internal sac and at most its apical part is exposed; its phallobase is small and rounded
Bocak and Bocakova (1990)
.
Redescription
. Body small to medium sized, length
5.1 13.2 mm
, mostly 6.0 8.0 mm, parallelsided to slightly widened posteriorly, moderately dorsoventrally depressed, weakly sclerotized. Many species brightly coloured, with dark red to orange yellow pronotum and elytra. Only few species concolorous black. Head hypognathous, small, slightly transverse, with short, conical rostrum. Eyes small, almost regularly smaller than their frontal interocular distance, hemispherically prominent, seldom with maximum eye diameter considerably larger than interocular distance. Frons concave, with deep depression medially, antennal tubercles flat, but distinct. Clypeus widely concave, labrum transverse, emarginate apically. Antennae slender, compressed, reaching to two thirds the length of elytra, either uniform in sexes or male antennae flabellate and female antennae weakly serrate. Flabellae of antennomeres 3 10 up to four times longer than trunks of antennomeres. Mandibles elongate, slender, curved, their inner margins simple. Maxillae with long setose galea. Maxillary palpi 4segmented, basal palpomere very small, triangular, palpomere 2 almost three times longer than basal one, palpomere 3 shorter, apical palpomere robust, as long as wide, securiform or parallelsided. Labial palpi 3segmented, considerably shorter, basal palpomeres minute, their combined length slightly longer than those of apical palpomeres, which resembles in shape those of maxillary palpi. Pronotum flat, with only short longitudinal pronotal keel present anteriorly, sometimes with a transverse mound present at middle of pronotum. Frontal margin usually widely rounded, frontal angles inconspicuous, lateral margins straight or slightly concave, posterior angles projected, sometimes very acutely. Disc rugose at frontal and lateral margins, shiny in middle and at base. Scutellum small, simply rounded at posterior margin. Elytra flat, slightly sclerotized, with 3 distinct longitudinal costae in anterior half of elytra. Costa 1 regularly shortened, seldom reaching beyond half of elytra, costae 2 and 4 complete, running entire length of elytra, costa 3 vestigial, scarcely distinct at base of elytra. Transverse costae absent, interstices finely rugose, densely pubescent. Legs slender, compressed, claws cleft apically. Male genitalia consisting of phallobase, phallus, and internal sac (
Fig. 14
). Parameres absent. Phallobase long, slender, asymmetrical, phallus mostly slender, simple. Internal sac often completely sclerotized and in some cases consisting of a pair of basal rods and lower and upper plate (
Figs 12
,
15
). Female genitalia are characterized by elongate styli and relatively short coxites. Valvifers fused with coxites and bases of coxites connected by bridge (
Figs 10
,
21
,
24
).
Sexual dimorphism
. There is only very slight sexual dimorphism in body shape and size. Males and females differ only in several species in the shape of antennae.
Dilophotes ohirai
(
Ohbayashi, 1956
)
,
D. vandykei
(
Nakane, 1970
)
,
D. luteus
sp. n.
,
D. anthracinus
sp. n.
, and
D. lizipingensis
sp. n.
have flabellate antennae in males (
Fig. 4
) and very slightly serrate antennae in females (
Fig. 5
). Most species have relatively small eyes without any substantial sexual dimorphism. Only males of
D. luteus
sp. n.
and
D. kubani
sp. n.
have very large eyes. Unlike many other genera,
Dilophotes
females have large eyes similar to those of the males.
FIGURES 12
: 1: The distribution of the genus
Dilophotes
in Eastern part of the Palaearctic region; 2: The distribution of the genus
Dilophotes
in Southeast Asia.
FIGURES 313
: 3: General appearance of
Dilophotes berezowskii
; 4: Antenna of
D. lizipingensis
sp. n.
; 5: Basal antennomeres
D. atricollis
; 68: Pronota. 6:
D. moxiensis
sp. n.
; 7:
D. lizipingensis
sp. n.
; 8:
D. berezowskii
; 913: Male and female genitalia. 9:
D. berezowskii
; 10:
D. berezowskii
; 11:
D. atrorufus
sp. n.
; 12:
D. bhutanensis
sp. n.
, apical part of phallus and internal sac: up upper plate, lp lower plate, br basal rods, ph phallus; 13:
D. holzschuhi
sp. n.
Remarks
.
Waterhouse (1878)
presented a description of the genus without proposing its formal name. The paragraph was headed "Genus 38" and the single included species was
Lycus exilis
.
Waterhouse (1879)
then named this genus
Dilophotes
and included two species in it:
Dilophotes exilis
(Waterhouse, 1978)
and
D. pygmaeus
Waterhouse, 1879
. In this valid description he designated
D. exilis
as the
type
species of the genus.
Distribution
.
Dilophotes
occurs in the whole Oriental Region and in he eastern part of the Palaearctic Region. Unlike its relative
Macrolycus
,
its range does not reach into Northern
China
or the Russian Far East. This revision shows that a very high diversity of
Dilophotes
exists in the tropical forests of northern
Laos
and it indicates the restricted ranges of most known species. The distribution of species is shown in
Figs 12
.
Ecology
. The Chinese
Dilophotes
species were collected from lower mountain forests up to the high mountain forests in Northern Sichuan and Southern Shaanxi. Similarly, the species from
Bhutan
were collected in high mountains. Adults were slow moving or sitting on leaves of shrubs and trees in clearings in montane forests. Therefore most specimens were collected by sweeping or as individuals. The Chinese species
D. atrorufus
was collected in numbers on flowering
Castanopsis
. Larvae of
Dilophotes
are unknown, but development in rotting wood is expected as in the related genus
Macrolycus
.
The Indochinese species were collected in habitats from lowland to lower mountains and they were often collected in the lower strata of dense forest canopy (L. Bocak, personal communication).
Lycids are protected from predators by the presence of several odiforous and bitter compounds (
Moore & Brown, 1981
), and therefore have a very strong tendency to form mimicry complexes. I have found that the Palaearctic species are dark red to reddish brown, similar to the other lycids that occur in the same habitat (
Macrolycus
,
Calochromus
GuérinMéneville, 1833
and
Plateros
Bourgeois, 1879
). The Bhutanese species
Dilophotes bhutanensis
sp. n.
is similar in the body size, shape and colouration the sympatrically occurring
Macrolycus bowringi
Waterhouse, 1878
, unlike the second sympatrical species,
D. holzschuhi
sp. n.
which is similar to the much smaller, dark red coloured
Plateros
species. Similarly, I found that in Laos's fauna the lightly coloured species are similar to some
Cautires
Waterhouse, 1879
and
Xylobanus
Waterhouse, 1879
as well as the dark red species of some
Plateros
and
Conderis
Waterhouse, 1879
.
Species level relationship
.
Dilophotes
species are, in many cases, hardly distinguishable when comparing external characters. The body colouration is usually the same in several sympatrically occurring species. I found the principal variation in the shape of male genitalia, the shape of antennae (
Figs 4, 5
), and the relative size of the eyes. Unfortunately, only few specimens were collected in copula or under conditions where I could associate males and females of the respective species. Therefore, the characters based on female genitalia were not been used for the study of species level relationships. Based on the structure of the male genitalia I have distinguished several species groups. The shape of phallus and the degree of sclerotization and the shape of the internal sac are very diversified in
Dilophotes
. Unfortunately, the only related genus,
Macrolycus
, has a very different
type
of phallus and therefore I was not able to homologize the characters found in the male genitalia.
The eyes are almost regularly considerably smaller than their interocular distances. Only two species,
D. luteus
sp. n.
and
D. kubani
sp. n.
have very large eyes. These species differ in both the shape of their antennae and the
type
of their male genitalia. Therefore, the size of eyes is not indicative of their relationships.
Two
types
of male antennae were found in
Dilophotes
.
Dilophotes ohirai
(
Ohbayashi, 1956
)
,
D. vandykei
(
Nakane, 1970
)
,
D. luteus
sp. n.
,
D. anthracinus
sp. n.
and
D. lizipingensis
sp. n.
have flabellate antennae in males, the remaining species have very similar slender filiform to serrate antennae in both sexes. Until now, all the species with flabellate antennae were placed in
Flabellodilophotes
Pic, 1912
(Dilophotellus Kleine, 1925)
or
Stenolycus
Ohbayashi, 1956
. I have found that the presence and/or lack of lamellae on antennae did not correlate with the shape of the male genitalia.
Flabellodilophotes
is a polyphyletic, typologically based genus and can not be accepted in the classification. I examined some Oriental representatives of
Flabellodilophotes
and both serrate and flabellate male antennae were found for example in the
D. moxiensis
group, which is defined in this article (e. g.
D. costatus
Kleine, 1930
). As I did not study the
type
species of
Flabellodilophotes
,
I do not formally synonymize it with
Dilophotes
. On the other hand, species with flabellate antennae from the studied area are here classified in
Dilophotes
.
Nakane (1969)
redescribed the Japanese species
Stenolycus
ohirai
in detail, which is a
type
species of
Stenolycus
. I compared the male genitalia with those of species occurring in continental Asia and I have not found any principal differences between them.
Stenolycus
ohirai
belongs to the
Dilophotes anthracinus
group and I propose
Stenolycus
to be a junior synonym of
Dilophotes
.
Kasantsev (2000)
described a new subgenus
Biphylodes
as a
Dilophotes
without elytral costa 1. The male genitalia of the
type
species are similar to those of
D. moxiensis
sp. n.
and
D. pacholatkoi
sp. n.
These species have well developed costa 1 as all other
Dilophotes
. Therefore,
Biphilodes
as a subgenus is ill based and refers only to one species within
D. moxiensis
group as defined further. Additionally, some species now classified by Kleine and Pic in
Flabellodilophotes
Pic, 1912
have the same
type
of aedeagus and when the male of the
Flabellodilophotes
species is found,
Biphilodes
Kasantsev, 2000
can be a junior synonym of
Flabellodilophotes
Pic, 1912
or
Dilophotellus
Kleine, 1925.