Cyclocephala kuijteni (Scarabaeidae: Dynastinae: Cyclocephalini), a new species from Suriname

Authors

Meindert A. Hielkema, Gouda, NetherlandsFollow

Date of this Version

9-29-2023

Citation

Hielkema MA. 2023. Cyclocephala kuijteni (Scarabaeidae: Dynastinae: Cyclocephalini), a new species from Suriname. Insecta Mundi 1006: 1–6.

Comments

This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons, Attribution Non-Commercial License,

Published on September 29, 2023 by Center for Systematic Entomology, Inc. P.O. Box 141874 Gainesville, FL 32614-1874 USA http://centerforsystematicentomology.org/

Abstract

Cyclocephala kuijteni, new species (Scarabaeidae: Dynastinae: Cyclocephalini), is described from Suriname. It is illustrated together with its aedeagus, and the characteristics differentiating it from the most similar species C. castanea (Olivier), C. hardyi Endrödi and C. pygidialis Joly are briefly discussed.

The New World genus Cyclocephala Dejean, 1821 contains about 360 described species, with most representatives occurring in the Neotropics (Ratcliffe and Cave 2015). While investigating the scarabaeoid fauna of Suriname with my son Auke, we collected a large number of Cyclocephala specimens with a so-called mothing sheet, including a single male specimen I was unable to identify. The general shape of this specimen resembles C. cas­tanea (Olivier, 1789), which is widespread in the Guiana Shield (Hielkema and Hielkema 2019) and common in Suriname (personal observation), but it is notably smaller and much darker with a differently shaped aedeagus. Cyclocephala hardyi Endrödi, 1975, a species known from Guyana and Brazil (Hielkema and Hielkema 2019), is externally rather similar to C. castanea. Joly (2000) discusses the morphological differences between these two species and describes the closely related C. pygidialis from Venezuela. Externally, the newly found speci­men is easily distinguished from these three species by its very dark appearance, while its aedeagus most closely resembles that of C. hardyi. All these species share a notably enlarged pronotum. This paper serves to describe this previously unknown species.