Revisão de Aegopsis Burmeister, 1847 (Coleoptera, Melolonthidae, Dynastinae)

Abstract

Aegopsis Burmeister, 1847 (Scarabaeoidea, Melolonthidae, Dynastinae) is a genera of rhinoceros-beetles characterized by body surface lustrous, colored lightish-brown to black, glabrous. Elytra uniformly colored, slightly flattened and broad with a convex external edge. Protarsi slightly thick, not slender, with simple and symmetrical claws. Males with two cephalic horns and a prothoracic horn directed forward (reduced in smaller males). Paramera with apical and basal regions departed by an emargination or concavity at external edge. Females with elytra as thicker near basis as near apex. Before this study, four species were known to the genera: A. curvicornis Burmeister, A. bolboceridus (Thomson), A. peruvianus Arrow and A. chaminadei Dechambre. In this work, the taxonomy of the genera was studied culminating in the redescription of the four species, revalidation of A. westwoodi stat. rev. Thomson and A. trinidadensis stat. rev. Sternberg and description of three new species: A. vazdemelloi sp. n., A. diceratops sp. n. and A. gryphon sp. n. It was tested methods for endophalus evertion and extraction of characters until then unused, as endophalic sclerites and axillary sclerites, for comparison among the species. Keys to identification of male and female species of Aegopsis were also provided as illustrative plates with the structures described in each species. Geographic distribution was actualized and characters from mouthparts were used as diagnostics for the first time to the genus, structures from paramere were slightly detailed, and axillary and endophalic sclerites were described for the first time to a genus of Agaocephalini.