Dyscolus gobbii Moret 2020, sp. nov.

Dyscolus gobbii Moret sp. nov.

urn:lsid:zoobank.org:act: 787DC50E-8874-4E7F-BCAD-FE33230508A1

Fig. 42

Etymology

Noun in the genitive case, dedicated to Mauro Gobbi, specialist of the ecology of glacier-foreland invertebrates, who took part in the discovery of this species.

Type material

Holotype

ECUADOR • ♀; Pichincha Province, Guamaní, Paso de la Virgen, Waypoint 210; 0°19′18.3″ S, 78°11′54.8″ W; 4230 m a.s.l.; 27 Feb. 2017; P. Moret and M. Gobbi leg.; COI voucher PM210-16, BOLD sequence SUM228-18; QCAZ.

Paratype

ECUADOR • 1 ♀; Pichincha Province, Volcán Antisana NW, B1C3; 0.457780º S, 78.167970º W; 4401 m a.s.l.; 22 Apr. 2016; E. Moreno leg.; COI voucher in ethanol PM188-01, BOLD sequence SUM183-18; CPM.

Diagnostic description

Habitus: Fig. 42. Wingless. Body length: 10.2 mm (holotype) to 12.3 mm (paratype). Body piceous black, legs brownish with reddish-brown femora. Elytral microsculpture made of oblong sculpticells, shallowly impressed. Head big, convex dorsally; mandibles long and sharp, as long as the length of the head from base to apex of the labium; eyes moderately bulging, genae oblique, slightly convex in dorsal view. Pronotum transverse, subquadrate, narrower at base than at apex; lateroapical lobes broadly rounded; hind angles obtusely rounded; two pairs of lateral setae. Elytra oval-shaped, convex, with effaced humeri. Striae weakly impressed, with traces of punctuation; intervals 1–4 slightly convex, 5–8 flat; third interval with five or six discal setae. Last visible abdominal ventrite of the female with two pairs of setae along its apical margin. Legs slender but short; fourth metatarsomere with convex sides, without subapical dorsolateral setae (holotype) or with weak and short subapical dorsolateral setae (paratype), apical lobes ovoid, the outer lobe slightly longer than the inner lobe. Male genitalia: unknown. Female genitalia: unstudied.

Comparisons

This isolated species remotely resembles Dyscolus segnipes Moret, 1990, with which it coexists in the Guamaní páramo. Dyscolus segnipes has much shorter mandibles and well developed subapical dorsolateral setae on the fourth metatarsomere. The COI tree places gobbii and segnipes in two clades far apart from each other.

Habitat

Humid superpáramo, from 4200 to 4400 m a.s.l. The Guamaní specimen was collected under a stone on the shore of a small lake; the Antisana specimen was collected by pitfall trapping in a mesic environment, 20 metres from a glacier-fed stream.

Geographic distribution

Microendemic species, restricted to the Antisana and Guamaní areas in the Eastern Cordillera.