Salagubang

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The tribe Pachyrrhynchini is one of the spectacular curculionid beetles in the Philippines with the genus Pachyrrhynchus, the star of the group, dazzling many entomologists and collectors alike. There are also allied genera of which, one of the biggest is the genus Metapocyrtus. Less spectacular as the former but interesting nonetheless.

Not since W Schultze, then the director of the Bureau of Science in Manila published his last work on the tribe in 1934, the study of these magnificent beetles, where Philippine occurring species are specifically mentioned, has been sporadic:

• JANCZYK 1959 Neue Curculioniden der Zoologischen Abteilung des Naturhistorischen Museums (2. Beitrag zur Kenntnis der Curculionidae)
• STARR & WANG 1992 Pachyrhynchine Weevils (Coleoptera: Curculionidae) of the Islands Fringing Taiwan

Early this year, Sheng Yap (University Extension Specialist, Museum of Natural History, University of the Philippines Los Baños) got in touch with me and sent me two new and significant papers of the genus Metapocyrtus, a god send, considering the dearth of papers on the group:

• YAP & GAPUD 2007 Taxonomic review of the Genus Metapocyrtus HELLER Coleoptera: Curculionidae: Entiminae)
• YAP 2008 Checklist of the Metapocyrtus Complex (Curculionidae: Entiminae: Pachyrrhynchini) of the Philippines

I will be detailing these two papers in two succeeding posts.

Parandra cabigasi SANTOS-SILVA sp. nov.

I’ve now updated my Parandrinae and species pages to reflect a soon to be published paper by Antonio Santos-Silva that I have previously mentioned. As emailed to me by Dan Heffern, two beetle species in my collection, both collected in Mindanao, will be named as Parandra cabigasi and Parandra ohbayashii. These forms part of seven new species of the cerambycid subfamily that are new to the country.

Until the paper will come out, I am retaining the genus.

I got good news from Eduard that he is now preparing the third part of his study of new Philippine Cerambycidae that will be published probably later this year. Of the 15 new and interesting species, five came from my collection.

Some notes:

*Parazosne cabigasi VIVES sp. nov., is named after me. I originally placed this as Acronioglenea sp. in this post.

**He will also be describing a new genus, Cristaphanes VIVES gen. nov. which will have C. filipinensis VIVES sp. nov. as the species. As he emailed, it was supposed to be under genus Lasiophanes but since it is an occupied name, he will describe a new one.

***Epipedocera kalingana VIVES sp. nov. (from Kalinga province) brings to three the number of species under the genus. I first posted about this one here.

****Finally, the Polyzonus species that I have posted previously and erroneously identified as Podanychroma monticola HUDEPOHL 1989 will now be described as Polyzonus bentanachsi VIVES sp. nov. in honor of Joan Bentanachs.

Below are the species from my collection that will be included.

This is the new main page of salagubang.net

This site’s blog has just gotten a major makeover with the implementation of a new redesign of the wordpress theme. This is the Salagubang theme that I have been planning for months to do but got to make it only the other day. The major change is that I have extended the width from 760px to 960px to accommodate a general sidebar that will later be included in the non blog pages. This sidebar will be used for additional content or features that I will add later.

The main page was also replaced from HTML to a wordpress blog page. Using the Nextgen plugin, a flash based slideshow gallery becomes the focal point. The header has also been revamped. One of my problems in the previous design was the lack of space for the menu bar. That’s why some items in the blog section were not included in the HTML pages section. This time, I’ve changed it and is now complete.

The design will eventually be carried over to all the HTML based pages but it might take some time because of the number and editing that will be needed to fully implement it.

I have added images of six scarab species including dorsal and lateral view of aedeagus of one as well as one carabid species. Except for the Parastasia sp. (?) which was collected in Luzon, the rest were collected in Camotes, Cebu over fluorescent light at the pension house I was staying at.

Total photos in salagubang.net is now at 1,242.