Ant-Like Flower Beetle

Mecynotarsus LaFerté-Sénectère, 1847

Type species: Mecynotarsus serricornis (Panzer, 1796)

Fauna Portal Genus Number: 664

The major distinctive characters and examples of variation are as follows: body setation mostly scaly or rarely rather coarsely hairy, scales more or less elongate, rounded to truncate, rarely bifurcate to somewhat frayed apically, erect tactile setae may be both absent and present (including elytra, sometimes numerous and very distinct); eyes with interfacetal setae mostly aciculate, sometimes nearly indistinct or conversely very conspicuous, thick, distinctly clubshaped (e.g. M. auceps sp. nov. and M. excavatus sp. nov.); rugules or tubercles on the gula varying from uniformly small and unevenly scattered to rather heterogeneous and partly ordered (coarser and more-or-less fused anteriorly); antebasal paired tactile setae of pronotum absent (completely or partly) to well-developed, mostly short, rarely conspicuously long (laterally); posterior collar of pronotum very short and inconspicuous to well-developed and quite distinct.

As for male characters, the aedeagi of the Australian Mecynotarsus are relatively large and much more elongate than those of the Oriental species, having long parameres with a distinct latero-basal process (typically absent in other Mecynotarsus (Figs 2, 4, 6), but present in some Notoxus), and the median lobe is mostly fi nely membranous apically, rarely with more sclerotized paired projections. The general morphology is rather uniform, including some details (e.g. subapical denticles on lateral margins and small lobules on the mesal margins of parameres in many, externally rather dissimilar species), suggesting monophyly of this species group.