Caucasusacalles lederi (Meyer)

Stüben, Peter E., 2025, New species and an image key to the wingless Cryptorhynchinae of the Caucasus (Coleoptera: Curculionidae: Tylodina) - a hypothesis on the spread of forest and open land species in the Western Palaearctic, Zootaxa 5647 (3), pp. 235-259 : 237-238

Caucasusacalles lederi (Meyer) species complex

Acalles lederi Meyer, 1896 was placed in the newly created monotypic genus Caucasusacalles in 2018 (Stüben 2018). The holotype, a male from Svaneti collected by H. Leder in the collection of E. Reitter, was studied by myself in 2003 in the Hungarian Natural History Museum. The only specimen was prepared by V. Savitsky, the aedeagus was removed and added to the plate (see also in Fig. 3 , bottom right). Digital photographs of the habitus and aedeagus were made and have already been published ( Stüben et al. 2003: Figs. 333.1/333.2).

In fact, however, Caucasusacalles lederi is a species complex consisting of at least two further species, as both molecular studies and genital preparations now available show. The inner sac structure (sclerites or socalled ‘aggonoporium’, Morimoto et al. 2015) in the endophallus, which is unique among the Western Palaearctic Cryptorhynchinae and consists of parallel bars connected on the upper side, is constant within a species, but interspecifically extremely rich in form.

In my book on ‘The Cryptorhynchinae of the Western Palearctic’ (Stüben 2018), I paid great attention to the distinctive and unique internal sac structure of the aedeagus in the description of the new genus Caucasusacalles , and overlooked the fact that I had already illustrated the aedeagus (and habitus) of another species from the C. lederi complex, which was not congruent with the holotype from the Reitter collection mentioned above (Stüben 2018: 24). In reality, this is the adelphotaxon Caucasusacalles subglobosus sp. nov. to be described below. Another species to be separated is Caucasusacalles circularis sp. nov.

Figures

FIGURE 3. Habitus and aedeagus of Caucasusacalles lederi (Meyer, 1896) with the aedeagus and endophallus of the holotype (bottom right).