Oreoscotus Aurivillius 1910

Oreoscotus Aurivillius, 1910

Oreoscotus Aurivillius, 1910: 421 (species included: serratus, minor, laevis). Type species: not yet designated.

Remarks. Judging by the results of the morphological comparison of the type specimens, both of Hustache’s taxa are not congeneric with M. carinatus and have to, therefore, be transferred to another genus. Choosing such a genus requires a phylogenetic hypothesis of African Molytinae, and such a hypothesis is currently absent. To the best of available knowledge, both Hustache’s species likely belong to a possible clade distinguished by the adult prosternal canal delimited laterally by carinae and uniting Afrotropical species currently assigned to the genera Niphades Pascoe, 1871, Oreoscotus Aurivillius, 1910 and Niphadonothus Voss, 1965. This agrees with an earlier thought captured on one of the labels of the O. puncticollis holotype, where the specimen is related to Niphades (written perhaps by Guy A.K. Marshall, Figs 2C, D). These three genera, however, have themselves never been assessed from a phylogenetic viewpoint and their taxonomic validity is based on the pre-Henniginan typological concept. Alonso-Zarazaga & Lyal (1999) placed Oreoscotus as Molytinae incertae sedis, while Alonso-Zarazaga & Lyal (2002) transferred it to Aminyopini. Lyal (2014) included Niphades and other Aminyopini in the tribe Euderini; in this paper characters for the redefined Euderini were provided but not, however, cladistically analysed. Moreover, preliminary data suggest that the genus Niphades is widely distributed in the Afrotropical, Palaearctic and Oriental regions, has its type species in Sarawak and is not monophyletic. Considering all this uncertainty and pending further studies, both of Hustache’s nominal species originally described as Molytophilus (affinis and puncticollis), are herein transferred to the so far exclusively Tanzanian genus Oreoscotus to become O. affinis (Hustache, 1936) comb. n. and O. puncticollis (Hustache, 1936) comb. n.