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Description of the male of Ctenophilothis altus (Lewis, 1885):
supplement to the revision of the genus Ctenophilothis
Kryzhanovskij, 1987 (Coleoptera, Histeridae, Saprininae)
Tomáš Lackner1
1 Czech University of Life Sciences, Faculty of Forestry and Wood Sciences, Department of Forest Protection and Entomology, Kamýcká 1176,
CZ-165 21 Praha 6 – Suchdol, Czech Republic
http://zoobank.org/DB9F0BB4-BB76-496F-B7A0-A7991AE1AA6B
Corresponding author: Tomáš Lackner (tomaslackner@me.com)
Abstract
A description of the male, including illustrations of the male genitalia, and a colour image
of the habitus of the extremely rare species Ctenophilothis altus (Lewis, 1885) are pro-
vided for the rst time. Further support for the monophyly of the genus Ctenophilothis
Kryzhanovskij, 1987 is given.
Key Words
Coleoptera
Histeridae
Saprininae
Ctenophilothis
In 2013 I published a revision of the genus Ctenophilothis
Kryzhanovskij, 1987 (Lackner 2013). At the time of that
revision this genus consisted of only two psammophilous
Saharan species, both very rare. Although C. chobauti
(Théry, 1900) has been found several times in the Moroc-
can and Algerian Sahara (Olexa 1990, Gomy et al. 2014),
the other species, C. altus (Lewis, 1885) was known only
from the female holotype and another female, collected
in upper Egypt (Lackner 2013). During my recent visit
to the Zoological Museum of the Humboldt University
Berlin, Germany (ZMHUB) I discovered in the collection
a male of this species, collected in Asyut, central Egypt.
In this short correspondence I publish the discovery
of the third specimen of the extremely rare C. altus, to-
gether with the color image and illustration of its hith-
erto unknown male genitalia. Both Egyptian localities
of this species are likewise mapped herein. As already
noted by Lackner (2013) the genus Ctenophilothis is
most probably monophyletic, sharing e.g. the absence
of the antennal cavity, shortened or strongly reduced
Received 11 August 2014
Accepted 9 September 2014
Published 24 October 2014
Academic editor:
Alexey Solodovnikov
lateral costa of the antennal groove or the peculiar shape
of protibia (Lackner 2013: 281). The comparison of the
male genitalia of both species reveals their striking sim-
ilarities as well (compare gs 2–10 with those of Lack-
ner 2013, gs 11–17) suggesting further support for the
genus’ monophyly. The main difference between the
male terminalia lies in the shape of spiculum gastrale
that in C. chobauti belongs to the most common type
found in the Saprininae, having both ‘head’ and ‘stem’
sensu Caterino and Tishechkin (2013). On the other
hand, the spiculum gastrale of C. altus is of a rather
peculiar type, lacking typical ‘head’ or ‘stem’ (compare
gs 7–8 with those of Lackner 2013, gs 14–15). Espe-
cially seen from the lateral view, the spiculum gastrale
of C. altus is extremely at, almost without projections
(Fig. 8). According to my studies on the morphology
of the Saprininae, the shape of the spiculum gastrale
is very diverse and it was very difcult to parse this
extraordinary diversity into discrete character states
(Lackner in press).
Dtsch. Entomol. Z. 61 (2) 2014, 121–122 | DOI 10.3897/dez.61.8422
Copyright Tomáš Lackner. 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.
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Tomáš Lackner: Description of the male of Ctenophilothis altus (Lewis, 1885).....
122
The second known locality of C. altus (Asyut,
27°11’00”N 31°10’00”E) lies more south than the single
one published previously (Fig. 11). The presumed rarity of
the species can be most likely ascribed by the insufcient
collection aimed at the psammophilous Histeridae in Egypt.
While efforts aimed at collecting psammophilous Saprin-
inae of the Algerian and Moroccan Sahara yielded remark-
able results (see e.g. Olexa 1990 or Gomy et al. 2014), there
has been practically no such activity performed in Egypt.
Thanks are due to the Coleoptera curator of ZMHUB, B.
Jaeger for his help and assistance during my visit to the col-
lection as well as to Mahmoud Saleh Saleem (Riyadh, Sau-
di Arabia) for his help with the Egyptian localities. I would
also like to thank the ZMHUB for the help with the open
access of my work. This research received support from the
SYNTHESYS Project http://www.synthesys.info/, which is
nanced by the European Community Research Infrastruc-
ture Action under the FP7 Integrating Activities Program
as well as by the Internal Grant Agency (IGA n.20124364)
Faculty of Forestry and Wood Sciences, Czech University
of Life Sciences Prague, Czech Republic.
References
Caterino MS, Tishechkin AK (2013) A systematic revision of Oper-
clipygus Marseul (Coleoptera, Histeridae, Exosternini). ZooKeys
271: 1–401. doi: 10.3897/zookeys.271.4062
Gomy Y, Labrique H, Francois A (2014) Contribution à la connaissance
des Histeridae du Maroc (Coleoptera) (Troisième note) 1er Partie.
Bulletin de la Société Entomologique de Mulhouse 70(2): 23–35.
Lackner T (2013) Revision of the genus Ctenophilothis Kryzhanovskij,
1987 (Coleoptera: Histeridae: Saprininae). Zootaxa 3691(2): 273–
282. doi: 10.11646/zootaxa.3691.2.6
Lackner T (in press) Phylogeny of the Saprininae subfamily reveals
interesting ecological shifts in the history of the subfamily (Coleop-
tera: Histeridae). Zoological Journal of the Linnean Society.
Olexa A (1990) On the genus Philothis and related genera (Coleoptera:
Histeridae). Acta Entomologica Bohemoslovaca 87: 141–155.
Figure 1. Ctenophilothis altus (Lewis, 1885) habitus, dorsal view.
Figures 2–10. Ctenophilothis altus (Lewis, 1885) 2 – eighth ster-
nite and tergite, ventral view; 3 – ditto, dorsal view; 4 – ditto,
lateral view; 5 – ninth and tenth tergites, dorsal view; 6 – ditto,
lateral view; 7 – spiculum gastrale, ventral view; 8 – ditto, lateral
view; 9 – aedeagus, dorsal view; 10 – ditto, lateral view.
Figure 11. Distribution of Ctenophilothis altus (Lewis, 1885)
in Egypt.
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