Synonyms
Bucolus cyaneus Slipinski and Dolambi, 2007:767.
Diagnosis
This is a very distinctive species due to its entirely bluish and strongly metallic dorsal surfaces and the abdominal ventrites bordered by distinct grooves.
Description
Length 2.5 mm. Body black; pronotum and elytra with distinct bluish metallic tinge; mouthparts, antennae, tarsi and abdomen brown. Dorsum distinctly convex, covered with whitish pubescence forming whorled pattern on elytra. Punctures on head about as large as eye facets, separated by 1.0-2.0 diameters; intervals between punctures shiny without microsculpture. Anterior clypeal margin straight. Apical maxillary palpomere, short and broad. Eyes at frons separated by about 2.2 times eye width. Pronotal base margined in front of scutellum; prosternum long in front of procoxae with broad and forward oriented, projection that is about 0.6 times as broad as prosternum. Prosternal process 0.8 times as wide as transverse coxal diameter. Hypomeron deeply concave with delimited antennal foveae anteriorly. Scutellum pentagonal, setose. Elytral surface densely punctate; all punctures setigerous, of 2 different sizes, the larger about as large as those on pronotum, intermixed with much smaller ones of variable dispersion; interspaces shiny and without noticeable microsculpture. Epipleuron about 2 times as broad as metepisternum, narrowing posteriorly from the level of abdomen and completely absent apically; foveae well defined; the mesofemoral fovea deeply delimited both on metepisternum and epipleuron; the metafemoral one deeply impressed on epipleuron. Meso-metaventral junction about as wide as mesocoxa; mesoventrite straight and bordered anteriorly. Protibia short and broad, shallowly emarginate along external margin of deep tarsal groove; mid and hind tibiae similar to each other, narrower and sharply angulated externally; claws in male appendiculate with basal tooth prominent and short. Abdominal postcoxal line recurved and incomplete; ventrite V arcuate with distinct marginal groove extending along margins of ventrites 2-4.
Male
Male genitalia as figured.
Female
Externally identical to male.
Variation
Not observed.
Distribution and Biology
Known from Kioloa State Forest in New South Wales.
Species References
Slipinski, A and Dolambi, F. 2007. Revision of the Australian Coccinellidae (Coleoptera). Part 7. Genus Bucolus Mulsant. Annales Zoologici (Warszawa), 57: 763-781.
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