(Coleoptera: Chrysomelidae: Alticinae)
Mniophila Stephens
Mniophila muscorum |
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Mniophila muscorum |
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Distribution: Europe, Caucasus, ? Fiji.
Statistics: 1 species in Palearctic, possibly 1 species
on Fiji.
Host Plants: Plantago
lanceolata, Teucrium scodonia, Digitalis purpurea (Kaszab,
1962).
Comments: Samuelson (1973) placed his
newly described species from Fiji (M. exulans Samuelson
1973) in this genus "with some reservations, because it has upper
frons and vertex delimited strongly instead of weakly and
antennal segment 8 of normal size instead of reduced" (Samuelson
1973, p.61). We share his reservations, and further find an
Oceanian distribution for this genus to be highly improbable.
Diagnosis: Body very small, circular.
Color black or dark brown.
Head hypognathous, long, more or less flat from
lateral view. Frontal ridge long, wide, flat dorsally and narrow
ventrally. Antennal calli completely separated from each other,
raised, delimited from vertex by minute furrows. Orbital line
absent. Eye small. Vertex flat. Clypeus comparatively long.
Antenna 11-segmented, moniliform.
Pronotum wide, short and convex, lateral margin
narrowly explanate. Procoxal cavity closed behind. Intercoxal
prosternal process narrow, long, parallelsided. Meso- and
metasternum wide and very short.
Elytra oval, very convex, without humeral calli.
Punctation arranged in striae; interspaces broad and flat.
Epipleuron subhorizontal, reaching apical margin of elytron.
Metafemur typical, metatibia not flat on upper side.
Metatibial spine long, inserted medially. First metatarsal
segment as short as second one.
