Anoplocheilus (Nselenius) silvicola Holm & Perissinotto, 2004

Anoplocheilus (Nselenius) silvicola Holm & Perissinotto, 2004 View in CoL ( Fig. 6 A View Fig )

Anoplocheilus (N.) silvicola . Holm and Perissinotto 2004: 82; Beinhundner 2017: 507

Remarks. Anoplocheilus (Nselenius) silvicola was originally described from a series of specimens collected in a very restricted area (Enseleni Nature Reserve) in the interior region of north-eastern KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa. Subsequently, a few drowned specimens were also retrieved from the False Bay part of Lake St Lucia, within the iSimangaliso Wetland Park (a UNESCO World Heritage Site), some 100 Km to the east of the type locality (cf. Beinhundner 2017). The species exhibits a very dorso-ventrally flattened shape, its legs are rather slender and in the male the tarsi are actually hypertrophic. Sexual dimorphism is extreme, with males testaceous with black/brown ornamentation and females completely black to dark green. Males also exhibit longer antennal clubs and a pronounced median groove on abdominal sternites, by comparison with their female counterparts. Their aedeagal parameres are actually very close to those of Lamellothyrea Krikken, 1980 species (cf. Holm and Perissinotto 2004, fig. 5), with which they share several other characters, such as tibial and tarsal features as well as pronotal and scutellar morphology ( Fig. 6 View Fig ). They clearly belong to the same clade, however other substantial differences prevent a confident re-allocation of A. (N.) silvicola to Lamellothyrea for now. These include in particular the short, unarmed shape of its clypeus, which is in sharp contrast to the elaborate clypeal armour of Lamellothyrea , consisting of a bifurcate horn on anterior margin complemented by three sets of transverse and longitudinal laminae on frons and vertex ( Krikken 1980; Holm & Marais 1992; Beinhundner 2017). The marked sexual dimorphism observed in A. (N.) silvicola is also a characteristic not seen in either of the two species currently recognised within Lamellothyrea ( Perissinotto 2017) . In summary, and in the absence of more quantitative molecular genetic data, it is thus suggested that the continuing inclusion of A. (N.) silvicola within the genus Anoplocheilus is untenable and that the subgenus Nselenius should be elevated to full genus status: Nselenius silvicola ( Holm & Perissinotto, 2004) stat. nov.