Anomalocys lawrencei Legalov et Perkovsky, 2025

Anomalocys lawrencei Legalov et Perkovsky , sp. nov.

https://zoobank.org/ urn:lsid:zoobank.org:act:

( Fig. 1 View Figure 1 )

Type material. Holotype: NHMD 153506 with labels ‘ Ciidae Dr. Ipsen Esbjerg’ ‘ Cis sp. det. J. F. Lawrence’, Danish amber, late Eocene.

Syninclusion: Coccinea inc. s.

Etymology. The epithet is in honour of well-known coleopterist and Ciidae expert John Francis Lawrence ( Australia).

Description. Body black, oblong-oval, convex dorsally, with bristles. Clypeus without teeth. Forehead convex, wide, finely punctate. Eyes well protruded, coarsely faceted, about 0.8 times as long as wide. Antennae clavate. Antennomere first suboval, about 1.1 times as long as wide in middle. Second and third antennomeres almost rounded. Antennomere second about 0.9 times as long as wide in middle, about 0.7 times as long as and about 0.9 times as narrow as antennomere first. Antennomere third slightly wider than length, slightly longer and of same width as antennomere second. Antennomere fourth slightly transverse, about 0.8 times as long as wide in middle, about 0.9 times as long as and slightly wider than antennomere third. Antennal club compact, consists of fused antennomeres five-seven, 1.3 times as long as wide, 2 times as long as and about 1.6 times as wide as antennomere fourth. Its length equal to half longitudinal diameter of eye. Pronotum almost trapezoid. Lateral margins narrow, slightly explanate, visible for their entire lengths from above, lacking bristles. Disc with large and small punctures. Elytra oval, widest at middle, about 1.4 times as long as wide across base, about 1.3 times as long as wide across middle, about 1.8 times as long as wide across apical fourth, about 3.2 times as long as pronotum, with indistinct humeri. Elytral striae absent. Precoxal portion of pronotum long, of same length as length of procoxal cavity. Intercoxal process wide, 0.7 times as wide as length of procoxal portion. Metaventrite weakly convex, 2.1 times as long as length of mesocoxal cavity, sparsely punctate in middle, densely punctate laterally. Metepisternum quite narrow. Abdomen convex. Ventrite first not modified, about 0.4 times as long as length of mesocoxal cavity. Ventrite second about 1.6 times as long as ventrite first. Ventrite third slightly longer than ventrite second. Ventrite fourth about 1.3 times as long as ventrite third. Ventrite fifth about 0.8 times as long as ventrite fourth, covered by elytra. Legs long. Procoxae transverse, not projecting below intercoxal process. Femora clavate. Meso- and metafemora 3.0 times as long as wide in middle. Tibiae expanded apically. Protibiae with tooth on the outer edge before middle. Outer apical angle of protibia expanded, rounded, and bearing four spines. Protibia 3.0 times as long as wide at apex. Mesotibia about 3.3 times as long as wide at apex. Metatibia about 3.0 times as long as wide at apex. Tarsi long, four-segmented. Protarsi: first tarsomere 0.7 times as long as second; tarsomeres second-third subequal in length; tarsomere fourth 2.5 times as long as tarsomere third. Mesotarsi: first tarsomere 0.7 times as long as second; tarsomeres first and second subequal in length; tarsomere third longer than tarsomere second; tarsomere fourth 2.2 times as long as tarsomere third. Metatarsi: first tarsomere 0.7 times as long as second; tarsomere third slightly longer than tarsomere second; tarsomere fourth about 1.9 times as long as tarsomere third. Body length: 1.3 mm.

Discussion

The beetles of Danish amber are not well studied. Larsson (1978) recorded representatives of the following groups from Danish amber stored in the collection of the Natural History Museum of Denmark: Carabidae, Staphylinoidea, Cantharoidea , Melyridae , ‘Helodidae’, Heteroceridae , Cleridae , Temnochilidae , Anobiidae , Ptinidae , Bostrichidae, Sternoxia , Dermestidae, Byrrhoidea, Clavicornia, Heteromera , Cerambycidae , Chrysomelidae , Anthribidae , Curculionidae and Scolytidae . Species from the families Carabidae ( Erwin 1971) ; Staphylinidae ( Zanetti et al. 2016; Bogri et al. 2018; Shavrin et al. 2025) from Staphylinoidea; Cantharidae from Cantharoidea ( Kazantsev 2013; the distribution of Mimoplatycis notha Kazantsev, 2013 discussed in Kazantsev et al. 2025); Scirtidae from Scirtoidea ( Klausnitzer 1976); Throscidae from Elateroidea ( Muona 1993); Bostrichidae ( Legalov et al. 2024a) from Bostrichoidea; Cryptophagidae ( Lyubarsky et al. 2024a; 2024b) and Erotylidae (Lyubarsky et al. 2024) from Cucujoidea; Mycetophagidae (Legalov et al. 2024с) and Ciidae ( Legalov et al. 2024b) from Tenebrionoidea; Chrysomelidae ( Nadein et al. 2016) , Brentidae ( Voss 1972; Legalov 2020, 2022), Scolytidae ( Schedl 1967) and Curculionidae ( Voss 1972; Yunakov & Kirejtshuk 2011; Legalov 2020) from Chrysomeloidea have been studied mainly in recent years. The remaining Larsson’s groups need to be studied.

Most of the ciids live in tunnels excavated inside basidiocarps, which imposes strong selective pressures over their body shape ( Lopes-Andrade 2007).

A reduction of the number of antennomeres is characteristic for ciids since these beetles benefit from speeding up the development cycle. But there are some restrictions since the oligomerization affects the size and structure of the antennal club, with all segments of the club “stuffed” with numerous sensillifers which appear of a great importance for the adult beetles ( Lopes-Andrade 2008 and references therein). Characters such as number of antennomeres may vary within a genus, or even within a species (e.g. in Phellinocis romualdoi Lopes-Andrade et Lawrence, 2005 : Lopes-Andrade 2007), but the grade of reduction in the club size of the new species is completely exceptional; its club is 3-5 times smaller in area than the compact club of Xylographellini ( Lopes-Andrade 2008) and, surprisingly, is almost equal in length to the last segment of the maxillary palps. The ability to reduce the club size (and, in parallel, the quality of information received from the receptors) could be determined by the very stable environment conditions of the species, that could be derived from equable climate of the Eocene European amber forest. “Sensillifers” (group of modified and organized sensillae) in all the antennomeres of the club are absent only in Sphindocis and Nipponapterocis Miyatake, 1954 ( Lopes-Andrade 2008). Interesting that Nipponapterocis distributed from southern-central Honshu to Rykyu (Kawanabe 1995) and Sphindocis is known only from the Transition Zone forests of the northern California coast ( Lawrence 1974); climates of both regions have some similarity with an ‘extinct’ climate of the Eocene European amber forests ( Archibald & Farrell 2003; Jenkins Shaw et al. 2024; Perkovsky et al. 2024; Chemyreva et al. 2024 and references therein).

Acknowledgements

We thank Lars Vilhelmsen ( NHMD) for the loan of the specimen, Kirill V. Makarov ( Moscow State Pedagogical University, Moscow, Russia), Roman Yu. Dudko and Sergei E. Tshernyshev ( Institute of Systematics and Ecology of Animals, Novosibirsk, Russia) for discussion, Dmitry Telnov (Natural History Museum, London, United Kingdom) for editing the English and useful comments and anonymous reviewers for improving the overall quality of the manuscript. EEP was supported by the Scholars at Risk Ukraine ( SARU) program, jointly funded by the Villum Foundation, Carlsberg Foundation, and Novo Nordisk Foundation .

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