Chilocorus flaviceps (Miyatake), comb. n.

(Fig. 31)

Phaenochilus flaviceps Miyatake, 1970b: 111 .— Poorani 2002: 313; Giorgi & Vandenberg 2012: 248.

Diagnosis. Length: 4.00 mm; width: 3.70 mm. Form nearly hemispherical, dorsum strongly convex and glabrous. Head and anterior and anterolateral corners of pronotum broadly reddish or yellowish testaceous, elytra black to piceous (Fig. 31a, c). Ventral side including legs yellowish testaceous except elytral epipleura largely blackish, inner side lighter. Outwardly similar to the more commonly collected C. nigrita but differs in possessing a narrow frons and divergent eyes, slender terminal maxillary and labial palpomere and elongate basal tooth of tarsal claw, and can be reliably separated mainly by the male genitalia (Fig. 31e–g).

The holotype male of Phaenochilus flaviceps Miyatake (Fig. 31a, b) (Tamil Nadu / Coimbatore, BPBM) (Image courtesy: Hiroyuki Yoshitomi, Ehime University) and the specimen from Bihar (BMNH, examined) (Fig. 31c, d) are illustrated here.

Distribution. India: Bihar; Kerala; Tamil Nadu.

Notes. This is one of three known Indian species of the erstwhile Phaenochilus (now part of Chilocorus) with black to piceous elytra (Giorgi & Vandenberg, 2012). Following Li et al. (2020b), it is transferred to Chilocorus (comb. n.). It may have a wider distribution in India, but likely to be misidentified as Chilocorus nigrita, in view of its resemblance to the latter. Miyatake (1970b) described it from South India (Tamil Nadu) and it appears to be a rare species and it is also likely that specimens may be mixed up with Chilocorus nigrita, a commonly collected species. Specimens from Bihar (BMNH, examined) identified as Phaenochilus flaviceps by R. G. Booth and P. Łączyński were also examined.