Odontocheila cajennensis (Fabricius, 1787)

Odontocheila cajennensis View in CoL species-group

(modified and shortened from Moravec 2018)

Identification. The species group, proposed by Moravec & Brzoska (2015) and thoroughly revised recently ( Moravec 2018), is represented by O. cajennensis ( Fabricius, 1787) and a number of species including those of the O. cajennensis species-complex previously commonly treated in literature (including Rivalier 1969) as subspecies despite their often sympatric occurrence. In the classification presented also here, this large and well-delimited species-group is principally characterized by mandibles with only three prominent teeth (apart from the basal molar), first emphasized and used as a diagnostic character by Moravec (2012): the left mandible with only three teeth (rarely with a small rudiment of fourth tooth usually indicated by a raised edge); the right mandible constantly with only three teeth, exceptionally (in two species only) a rudiment of fourth tooth indicated at the base of the third tooth; body large to very large with black-cupreous dorsal body surface, often head and pronotum and lateral areas of elytra with bronze, greenish or violaceous blue lustre, elytral surface almost even with only indistinct impressions, punctate throughout; white elytral maculation usually very reduced, to the extent that the elytra may appear immaculate, only rarely (each of them) with three maculae; all ventral and lateral sterna and abdominal ventrites glabrous; palpi normally shaped; aedeagus large and voluminous in middle, its apical portion attenuating to a nar- row apex which is either simply cylindrical and blunt or dorsally emarginated, excised, or somewhat elongated with small sharpened hook, rarely arcuate-hooked; internal sac with sclerites characteristic of the genus, with long, multicoiled flagellum protruding from the dorsolateral orifice, but the large voluminous (reniform) central-ventral piece has more distinct, strongly chitinized thin lower appendage, and the bulbous base of the flagellum is smaller, thus notably distant from the voluminous piece; legs variously coloured, metallic black, brownish or testaceous with metallic black tarsi. However, species of the O. cajennensis species-complex (see below) are immediately distinguishable by their constantly yellow to ochre-testaceous metatibiae, and majority of them also possess testaceous metatarsi—see under the species-complex below.

Distribution. Occurring in Nicaragua, Costa Rica, Panama, Amazon areas of Colombia, Venezuela, Ecuador and Peru, those of O. cajennensis species-complex also occurring in British Guyana, Surinam, French Guiana and Trinidad, and are spread, particularly along the numerous Amazon tributaries, throughout the Amazon Basin from Colombia, Venezuela, Ecuador, Peru and Bolivia to Brazil.