Cacia ( Corethrophora ) complicata, Vitali, 2025

Cacia ( Corethrophora) complicata n. sp.

( Fig. 1-10)

ZooBank: https://zoobank.org/ 72FBC24A-D3E9-4C19-B8EA-427FC119EDA8

Holotype, ♂, Indonesia, Sulawesi Tengah, Palolo , III.2013, S.Alam leg.( CFV).

Paratypes: 1 ♀, Sulawesi Tengah, Palolo , V .2017, loc. coll. ( CXG); 1 ♀, ditto, Kamarora Village , V .2013 ( CBS); 1 ♂, ditto, VII.2013 ( CFR) ; 1 ♂, 2 ♀, Sulawesi Tenggara, Tonosu / Tentena, Posu Lake , 20.IV.1994, R. Gerstmeier leg. ( CAW) .

Description

Body size: 10-12 mm.

Coloration. – Integuments pitch-brown; flagellum and legs, especially, the dorsal side, chestnut-brown to reddish; body densely covered with brown tomentum decorated with yellowish white pubescence. Head entirely white, except for a brown transverse band between eyes, which is prolonged posteriorly behind the eyes and triangularly along the vertex forming a Y-shaped white band on the occiput; pronotum with three fine longitudinal white bands on the disc, one along the middle and one at each side; scutellum white except for the anterior angles; elytra covered with a complicated and very variable pattern of tomentum, where it is possible to recognize:

1) suture covered with white spots, always coalescent on the basal third, sometimes missing on the middle, sometimes the entire suture uniformly white;

2) a white mark in the shape of “9” (on the right elytron) on the basal two-fifths, more or less connected with the sutural spots;

3) two zigzag transversal white lines after the middle, more or less fragmented and connected to the suture and to the previous mark;

4) two zigzag transversal white lines on the apical fourth, more or less fragmented sometimes resulting as longitudinal vittae or forming a circular drawing.

Scape, base of antennomeres II and IV and almost two-thirds of antennomere V white. Legs white, except for middle and apex of the femora and tarsomeres III-V. Ventral side entirely covered with white pubescence.

Head. – Squared, mandibles shining brown, smooth, covered with some white hairs at base; labrum densely covered with whitish pubescence; clypeus membranous, shining; frons with a fine carina along the superior half, which overpasses the level of the antennal supports posteriorly; eyes transverse, small, one-third as long as genae; antennal support somehow approached. Antennae long, nearly

Reviewer s:

Larry G. Bezark ( Sacramento , USA) - ZooBank: http://zoobank.org/ 25C35904-2035-4416-9534-8641C1551196 - https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0165-552X

twice as long as ( ♂) or one-third ( ♀) longer than body; scape angulated with open cicatrix at apex; pedicel transverse, covered with long erect black setae; antennomere III the longest, covered with erect setae at both sides and with an apical protuberance at apex; antennomere IV with erect setae at the inner side and a tuft of hairs at apex; antennomere V with sparse erect setae.

Pronotum. – As long as wide, parallel, unarmed, slightly convex on the disc.

Scutellum. – Rounded.

Elytra . –1.66timeslonger thanwide at humeri, parallel-sided, somewhere concave at base, widely rounded at apex.

Legs. – Short; femora club-shaped, covered with recumbent pubescence, tibiae covered also with erect long setae.

Differential diagnosis. – The protuberance at apex of antennomere III makes Cacia complicata n. sp. a clear member of the subgenus Corethrophora . The very complicated elytral pattern has little resemblance to C. vanikorensis , the only member of Corethrophora in Sulawesi.

This species is most similar to C. vermiculata Heller, 1923 and C. butuana Heller, 1923 , from which it differs in the pronotum decorated with three longitudinal lines (irregular and vermiculate in both Philippine species). Bothspecies belongtothe subgenus Ipocregyes , but the taxonomy proposed by Breuning (1938) deserves a deep revision.