Auletobius anceps

Auletobius anceps

Auletobius anceps is a relatively small Weevil (2-2.7mm, without the rostrum) in the family Rhynchitidae, endemic to some of the Canary Islands.
Auletobius anceps The verdict is in: Auletobius anceps. Some characters/measurements of this beetle: - Body length (without rostrum) 2,25mm - Rostrum length ~0.75mm, giving a 0.33 ratio to body length - The last (claw bearing) tarsal segment is about the same length as the first (not clearly longer as in convexifrons) - The shape of the antenna segments is up for discussion still (the key and fig.7 in Morris (2004) do not fit my beetle well, but the official redescription of the species (in the same paper) does fit like a glove. The relative length of the rostrum is "spot on" for maderensis and a bit iffy-inbetween the published ratios for male and female anceps, but my measurements may not be too precise and the overall body length is too small for maderensis. Anyway, I've contacted Dr. Morris about all this and he very kindly spent some of his valuable time in helping me out, concluding that he is confident we are looking at Auletobius anceps here. Auletini,Auletobius,Auletobius anceps,Curculionoidea,Geotagged,La Palma (Canary Islands),Rhynchitidae,Rhynchitinae,Spain

Naming

The species was originally described by Wollaston in 1864, along with some other species from Madeira and the Canary Islands, but has often been misidentified as Auletobius convexifrons by subsequent workers until Morris (2004) revised the Macaronesian Auletobius and redescribed the species.

References:

Some text fragments are auto parsed from Wikipedia.

Morris, M.G. (2004) A review of the Macaronesian species of Auletobius Desbrochers, 1869 (Coleoptera, Curculionoidea, Rhynchitidae). - VIERAEA Vol.32, pp.29-47
https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/ef57/85526d3d3aae12a83917d73fbe8630ae6ea2.pdf

STÜBEN, P.E. (2015) Auletobius (Canarauletes) garajonay sp.n. from La Gomera (Canary Islands) (Coleoptera: Curculionoidea: Rhynchitidae). - SNUDEBILLER - Studies on taxonomy, biology and ecology of Curculionoidea, vol.16.
Taxonomy
KingdomAnimalia
DivisionArthropoda
ClassInsecta
OrderColeoptera
FamilyRhynchitidae
GenusAuletobius
SpeciesAuletobius anceps
Photographed in
Spain