Nyssodrysina Casey 1913

Nyssodrysina Casey, 1913

Nyssodrysina Casey, 1913: 309; Monné, 2018: 126 (cat.).

Prothorax with lateral tubercles at posterior margin (basal area for some authors), and pronotum with transverse row of punctures at posterior margin reaching, and not surpassing the lateral tubercles, are present in Lepturges and Nyssodrysina (Monné 1976; Linsley & Chemsak 1995; Lingafelter 2007).

Reading some authors (e.g. Linsley & Chemsak 1995; Dillon 1956a) and by studying species from MZSP collection, it seems to us that the only reliable features distinguishing Nyssodrysina from Lepturges are the width of the pro- and mesoventral processes: from about one-fourth to one-third as broad as procoxal cavity in Nyssodrysina; and less than one-fourth in Lepturges (Linsley & Chemsak 1995).

Gilmour (1960) in proposing Nyssodrysternum, a genus very similar to Nyssodrysina, reported: “This new genus is most closely allied to the genus Nyssodrysina Casey, but is somewhat more cuneiform in shape, although agreeing in the longitudinally rather irregular elytra. It may however immediately be distinguished through having comparatively very much broader sternal processes, the prosternal being distinctly more than half the breadth of a procoxal cavity, not less than half as in Nyssodrysina, and the mesosternal at least the breadth, or slightly more, of a mesocoxal cavity, whereas in Nyssodrysina it is only a little more than half the breadth”.

Following Dillon (1956a), the position of the lateral tubercles of pronotum, the formula of the antennae, the large size of the lower eye lobes, and the subquadrate front shape distinguish Nyssodrysina. Linsley & Chemsak (1995) commented that species of Nyssodrysina have the upper lobes small, separated by less than diameter of antennal scape. In fact, most species of Nyssodrysina have the upper eye lobes very closed. But there is a certain variation in this distance, and there are exceptions, such as N. satipoensis Audureau & Demez, 2015, N. pulchella (Bates, 1863), and N. venusta (Bates, 1863). In some species of Nyssodrysternum, the transverse row of punctures at posterior margin of pronotum extend behind the lateral spines, but since there are exceptions and variations, the most reliable feature to separate these genera, apparently, is the width of the pro- and mesoventral processes as mentioned by Gilmour (1960).