Meloe (Meloe) hottentotus Péringuey 1885
Diagnostic description by @beetledude
Meloe (Meloe) hottentotus -- Eastern ZA Oil Beetle
Six or seven species, belonging to two subgenera, of Meloe oil beetles occur in southern Africa. The genus is unmistakeable: fairly large, black beetles, some of them with a greenish, bluish, purplish sheen, sometimes metallic; all flightless, with shortened elytra; and mostly with a hugely distended abdomen.
Three Meloe species are known from KwaZulu-Natal and from the Eastern Cape, two species of the subgenus Afromeloe and the third in the subgenus Meloe. The subgenus Meloe is easily told apart from the Afromeloe therein that the middle antennal segments (Nos 5, 6, 7) are modified, but unmodified in Afromeloe. In the males [this observation] those segments are crooked and enlarged; in females those segments are broader than the other segments.
The single species of subgenus Meloe known from this area is Meloe (Meloe) hottentotus. This species can be distinguished from other southern African Meloe by the following combination of characters:
• Middle antennale segments modified [as above].
• Head and pronotum with coarse, deep and dense punctures.
• Pronotum elongate, longer than wide.
• Punctures on head and pronotum dense but distinctly separated from each other.
• Distribution ECape, KZN, Free State, Lesotho, Mpumalanga.
Reference
Bologna MA, Pinto JD (1998) A review of the Afrotropical species of Meloe Linnaeus 1758 (Coleoptera Meloidae) with descriptions of first instar larvae, a key to species and an annotated catalogue. Tropical Zoology 11(1): 19–59.
https://doi.org/10.1080/03946975.1998.10539352.
OPEN ACCESS.
Oringinal description in:
Péringuey, L. 1885. First contribution to the South-African coleopterous Fauna. Transactions of the
South African Philosophical Society 3 (1885). doi:10.1080/21560382.1881.9526176
https://www.tesble.com/10.1080/21560382.1881.9526176
Tranlsated from Latin:
Cyan, shiny, antennae long, joints 5-7 thickened in male, compressed; prothorax elongate, deeply punctate; elytra aciculate [=marked with fine irregular streaks like needle scratches].
Length 13-22mm, width 4-7 mm.
The head is deeply punctured and separated from the epistome by a longitudinal impression; the antennae are long reaching as far as the middle of the elytra; in the male the 5 and 7 article are enlarged and compressed, the 6, the largest of the three is hollowed; the palpi are black and slightly infuscated at the tips.
The prothorax is deeply punctured, slightly convex on the upper side, attenuated near the base the margin of which is slightly sinuated; above the basal margin is a slight depression, and the outer sides are perpendicular.
The elytra are broader than the prothorax and three times as long. They diverge greatly from the middle and are finely aciculated.
The abdomen and underside are finely punctured.
The legs are coppery dark-blue, the tarsi are very slightly hirtose underneath.
From Port Elizabeth, Cape Colony, and Leydenberg, Transvaal.
In the Collection of the South-African Museum.
Redescription and illustration of male in:
Péringuey, L. 1909. Descriptive catalogue of the Coleoptera of South Africa. Family Meloidae.
Transactions of the Royal Society of South Africa 1
https://www.biodiversitylibrary.org/item/181696#page/243/mode/1up
Plate 22, figure 4 
Photos of museum specimens in Bolgna Pinto 1998: figures 25 and 30.
Pérenguey 1909, page 170 explains the common name of the genus Meloe: "When seized they exude through the joints of the legs, especially the knees, a yellow fluid, much in the same manner as in the genus Horia. It is this peculiarity which has gained for them the popular name of " oil beetles." "
iNat observations:
https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/187603452
https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/198365786
Kommentit
Lisää kommentti