Curelius jaegeri Esser & R 2017, nov.sp.

Curelius jaegeri nov.sp.

Type material: Holotype Ƌ: " Namibia, 24.XI.1993, 18°13’S / 21°45’E, Kavango: Mahango Game Reserve: Piknik site, lux. leg. M. Uhlig " [NMNW, temporarily MFNB].

Paratypes: 7 ex. with the same data as the holotype [MFNB: 6 ex., NMNW: 1 ex.]; 10 ex. " Namibia, 2.- 3.X.1993, 18°14’S / 21°43’E, Kavango: Mahango Game Reserve, leg. F. Koch " [MFNB: 6 ex., NMNW: 1 ex., cES: 3 ex.]; 2 ex. " Namibia-Exp. ZMB 1992, E. Caprivi: 10 km SE Katima Mulilo, 17°31’S / 24°25’ E, Zambezi-Altwasserarm, lux, 6.III.92, leg. M. Uhlig [MFNB]; 4 ex. "SWA / Namibia, Nyangana / Okavango, 14.- 22.1.1985, leg. H. Roer " [ZMFK: 3 ex., cES: 1 ex.]; 1 ex. " RSA, KwaZulu-Natal, sw Magudu, 04.- 05.01.2009, leg. P. Schüle " [SMNS].

E t y m o l o g y: To the honour of Bernd Jaeger, who supported my work every time.

D e s c r i p t i o n: Male, 1,05 mm, pale yellow-reddish. Body strongly convex, with strong but sparse puncture: on pronotum the distance like the diameter, on elytra distance is more than two diameters and puncture is more fine (fig. 1). Elytral epipleuron smooth. Eyes normal, one eye smaller than the diameter between the eyes (fig. 6). Metaventrite very sparsely punctured. Prosternal process parallel-sided, very sparsely punctured but distinct shagreened (fig. 9). No furrows for antennae next to the prosternal process developed. Legs are slender, pale. Antennae also slender and pale, 11 segmented with a 3 segmented club, segments 9, 10 and 11 slightly asymmetric, 10 and 11 jointed nearly in the middle of the previous segment (like usual in most Curelius).

C o m m e n t Very similar to C. japonicus (REITTER, 1878) and distinguished by the smaller eyes (figs 5 & 6), more convex body (figs 1 & 4) and different metaventrite and prosternal process (figs 8 & 9). Quite similar to the palaearctic C. dilutus (REITTER, 1883), but more stout and convex, with different structures on surface of pronotum and elytra.

D i s t r i b u t i o n: Known from Namibia and South Africa.