Hyboserica, PERINGUEY, 1904

HYBOSERICA PÉRINGUEY, 1904 View in CoL

Hyboserica Péringuey, 1904: 27 View in CoL . Type species (designated by Ahrens, 2007): Hyboserica caffra (Fåhreus, 1857) View in CoL ; Dalla Torre (1912: 65); Machatschke (1959: 744).

Diagnosis: Body of medium size (7.5–11.0 mm), elongately oval, reddish to yellowish or dark brown, dorsal surface with iridescent shine; dorsal surface nearly glabrous. With a few exceptions, the labroclypeus wide and trapezoidal, with fine and dense punctures; anterior margin of labroclypeus weakly sinuate, rarely distinctly sinuate or straight.Mentum anteriorly slightly elevated. Antenna composed of nine antennomeres, club short, in both sexes with three antennomeres. Pronotum subtrapezoidal and moderately wide, lateral margins sparsely setose, anterior angles well-produced and moderately sharp, anterior margin convexly produced medially; basal margin without marginal line. Hypomeron simple, not carinate. Elytra without reduced epipleural margin, apical margin chitinous, without membranous rim of microtrichomes, intervals flat, evenly finely punctate, glabrous, odd intervals with punctures concentrated along the weakly impressed striae, apical setae on sutural interval absent. Ventral surface sparsely covered with short setae. Metatibia dorsally with two groups of spines and longitudinally convex; at apex not truncate or sinuate near tarsal articulation. Protibia tridentate, basal tooth small.

Remarks: Two species were originally included in the genus, Hyboserica caffra (Fåhreus, 1857) and H. globuliformis (Brenske, 1901) . Ahrens (2007) designated the former as the type species. The latter is an Indian species, which was never found in South Africa ( Ahrens, 2007) and which was either temporarily introduced from India, or, more likely, erroneously labelled. However, apart from the only so far examined female type specimen (see Ahrens, 2007) we recently came across another male specimen that obviously belonged to the same type series, labelled ‘Cap b. spec. Coll. Felsche/ No. 261/ der carbona ähnlig [sic]/ Coll. Brenske’ (ZMHB); its aedeagus was virtually identical in shape with that of Maladera fumosa (Brenske, 1898) . Thus, Serica globuliformis Brenske, 1901 has to be considered a junior synonym of Maladera fumosa (Brenske, 1898) , a species extensively revised in Ahrens (2004) and Ahrens & Fabrizi (2016).

The Species 2000 & ITIS catalogue of life ( Schoolmeesters, 2017) and in consequence other online databases (e.g. Wikispecies, Encyclopedia of Life, Global Biodiversity Information Facility, Insectoid.info, Bionames.org, Global Species) list an additional nine Hyboserica taxa, which is because of a typing error (‘ Hyboserica ’ instead of correct ‘ Hyposerica ’): Hyposerica brunneipennis Moser, 1915 , H. brunneipennis Moser, 1918 , H. brunneipes Moser, 1915 , H. fenerivensis (sic, not feneriventris) Moser, 1915, H. luridipennis Moser, 1915 , H. piceonigra Moser, 1915 , H. sericeomicans Moser, 1915 , H. silvicola Moser, 1915 and H. truncatipennis Moser, 1915 . These Madagascan species, described in the genus Hyposerica Brenske, 1897 , were never associated with the southern African Hyboserica Péringuey, 1904 .