Lophorrhinides muellerae (Coleoptera, Scarabaeidae, Cetoniinae): a new genus and species from southern Tanzania

Abstract

A male cetoniine specimen recently submitted for identification from the Ditsong Museum of Natural History (Pretoria, South Africa) has been found to represent a yet unknown species. A review of the recently published book of Beinhundner (2017) has further revealed that one of the specimens mistakenly figured as Lophorrhina donckieri Bourgoin, 1913 in that work is most likely the female of this new species. Analysis of the diagnostic characters of the genus Lophorrhina Westwood, 1842 shows that the new species differs in several key areas. In particular, the clypeal armature is virtually identical in both sexes, the male protibiae are not typically elongate and narrow as in all the members of Lophorrhina, but are remarkably more robust, laterally expanded and with a tridentate margin in both sexes, even though the third tooth in the female and the second and third teeth in the male are virtually obsolete. The general body shape in the new species is also more globose and lacks the typical deplanate and apically tapering elytra of the Lophorrhina males. These and other characters are, in our view, sufficient to justify the erection of a new genus, Lophorrhinides gen. n., to accommodate the new species, here described as L. muellerae sp. n. The new genus is presumably a mountain specialist, as both known specimens were collected in the southern highlands of Tanzania, at Manow and Rungwe respectively.