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I’ve been a bit confused about three longhorn beetles of a Cacia sp. in my collection (link at this page). From the looks of it, these might be just variations of a single species? All were found in one locality.
Hudepohl in his survey of Philippine Cerambycinae, The Longhorn Beetles of the Philippines Part II, only mentioned the existence of Coptocercus quatuordecimsignatus SCHWARZER 1926 as the only cerambycid beetle from the tribe Phoracanthini. However, during a collecting trip in Misamis Oriental, I was able to catch this longhorn beetle which Eduard Vives said is from this tribe.
If so, this will be the second species to be found in the country and perhaps, possibly a new one.
The tiger beetle parcel that I sent to Fabio Cassola, world specialist on Cicindelidae, last year has finally arrived. I didn’t expect it to be in such a big box but I was surprised that the specimens were already mounted. Well, a lesson for me since when I mailed these before, even with a few mounted beetles, it was not double boxed, meaning, the container holding the specimens were not placed inside a bigger container with padding. When he received it, Fabio emailed me informing that some were broken.
Consisting of 12 mounted and 40 unmounted specimens, not all were returned as some were deposited in his collection. This include the possibly new species of Calomera from Mindanao. Fabio identified these as belonging to 19 species:
Tricondyla (Tricondyla) punctipennis Chevrolat, 1841 (Cebu and Homonhon)
Tricondyla (Tricondyla) ventricosa Schaum, 1862 (Luzon)
Tricondyla (Tricondyla) conicicollis Chaudoir, 1844 (Leyte and Luzon)
Tricondyla (Tricondyla) gracilis Naviaux, 2002 (Mindanao)
Tricondyla (Stenotricondyla) cyanipes Eschscholtz, 1829 (Marinduque)
Tricondyla (Pseudotricondyla) planiceps Schaum, 1862 (Luzon)
Neocollyris (Neocollyris) albitarsis (Erichson, 1834) (Marinduque & Luzon)
Neocollyris (Neocollyris) bonellii (Guérin-M.) ssp. paraguensis (W. Horn, 1894) (Homonhon & Mindanao)
Heptodonta melanopyga Schaum, 1862 (Luzon)
Calomera angulata (Fabricius, 1798) (Luzon)
Calomera mindanaoensis Cassola, 2000 (Bucas Grande)
Calomera cabigasi n. sp. (decemguttata Fabricius, 1801?) (Mindanao)
Lophyra (Spilodia) striolata (Illiger, 1800) ssp. (Mindanao)
Thopeutica (Thopeutica) milanae Wiesner, 1992 (Mindanao)
Thopeutica (Thopeutica) darlingtonia Cassola & Ward, 2004 (Luzon & Mindanao)
Thopeutica (Thopeutica) virginalis (W. Horn, 1901) (Cebu)
Thopeutica (Thopeutica) interposita (W. Horn, 1892) (Luzon)
Cylindera (Ifasina) fabiocassola (Wiesner, 1989) (Coron)
Cylindera (Ifasina) discreta (Schaum) ssp. elaphroides (Dokhtouroff, 1882) (Mindanao)
Breuning in 1974 described a new subgenus of Glenea and named it Acronioglenea based on characters found. The unique form of the pronotum which was carinated at the middle, form of the elytra and overall metallic shine led to this description. The species was named Glenea (Acronioglenea) besucheti and was collected from Luzon.
Vives in 2005 proposed the elevation of the subgenus to genus level in his paper New or interesting Cerambycidae from Philippines, part 1 (Coleoptera, Cerambycidae). He was able to get the second specimen of the species, this time from Laguna (leg. Lumawig).
A few days ago, while I was redesigning the gallery page of Tribe Saperdini, I was just surprised to find, what I believe, are three species of Acronioglenea in my collection! From the three images above (not to scale):
The elytral markings of the specimen from Ilocos Norte agrees with the one photograph in Vives’ paper. As for the two, the form matches the first and I have a feeling that these are two new species of the genus as Acronioglenea. As of now, it is only represented with A. besucheti BREUNING 1974.
UPDATE: Eduard emailed me that indeed, one is A. besucheti while the other two are new.
The cerambycid beetle illustrated at the right is a soon to be described Eustathes sp. from Bukidnon province in the island of Mindanao. This was according to my friend, Eduard Vives who was here for a visit. If not for the characteristic structure of the pronotum, it can easily be confused with the other Astathini genera Bacchisa and Astathes as there are also other species of said genera that displays the same elytral marking.
This will be the second species of the genus to occur in the Philippines. The other is Eustathes flava NEWMAN 1842 which is very common in most islands of the country.
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