Hamonthophagus depressus (Harold, 1871)

HAMONTHOPHAGUS DEPRESSUS View in CoL

(HAROLD, 1871: 116)

( FIGS 2, 7, 8, 10)

Synonymy: Onthophagus laceratus Peringuey 1901 nec Harold. Onthophagus carteri Blackburn, 1904: 147 teste Cartwright, 1938 depressus var. marmoreus d’Orbigny 1904: 309

Type material: Lectotype here designated: (male) SOUTH AFRICA: [Caffraria =] Eastern Cape province [ ZMHB]. For the morphological account, please refer to the original description.

Geographical distribution ( Fig. 14): The species was originally described from South Africa, Caffraria (now Eastern Cape Province), but shows a wide distribution (the full list of the localities can be found in Appendix 3, Supporting Information) extending in a large part of the Afrotropical region ( Angola, Botswana, Burundi, Democratic Republic of Congo, Kenya, Malawi, Mozambique, Namibia, South Africa, Tanzania, Zambia and Zimbabwe). Accidental introduction has been reported in Madagascar, Mauritius, USA (Florida, Georgia and South Carolina) and Australia (New South Wales and Queensland). Howden & Cartwright (1963) reported that specimens were collected at light in Georgia by Fattig. In the USA, H. depressus has been recorded in Georgia, south-west South Carolina and Florida ( Hunter & Fincher, 1996; Hoebeke & Beucke, 1997; Evans, 2014), with a scattered distribution, since 1937 ( Cartwright, 1938). The species was unintentionally introduced in Australia probably before 1900 ( Matthews, 1972; Woodruff, 1973), when Blackburn (1904) described H. depressus specimens as a new species naming it O. carteri . This species was later properly identified as O. depressus by Arrow (see Cartwright, 1938). It is likely that the first introduction in Australia could be localized to the area near Sydney, from where it began to expand its range starting from 1941 ( Matthews, 1972; Woodruff, 1973).