| Sakalianus marietae | |
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| Genus: | Sakalianus Jendek, 2007 |
| Species: | S. marietae |
| Binomial name | |
| Sakalianus marietae Jendek, 2007 | |
Sakalianus is a monotypic genus of beetles in the family Buprestidae, the jewel beetles. The sole species, Sakalianus marietae, was first described to science in 2007. It is known only from Kenya. [1]
In biology, a monotypic taxon is a taxonomic group (taxon) that contains only one immediately subordinate taxon.
Beetles are a group of insects that form the order Coleoptera, in the superorder Endopterygota. Their front pair of wings are hardened into wing-cases, elytra, distinguishing them from most other insects. The Coleoptera, with about 400,000 species, is the largest of all orders, constituting almost 40% of described insects and 25% of all known animal life-forms; new species are discovered frequently. The largest of all families, the Curculionidae (weevils) with some 83,000 member species, belongs to this order. Found in almost every habitat except the sea and the polar regions, they interact with their ecosystems in several ways: beetles often feed on plants and fungi, break down animal and plant debris, and eat other invertebrates. Some species are serious agricultural pests, such as the Colorado potato beetle, while others such as Coccinellidae eat aphids, scale insects, thrips, and other plant-sucking insects that damage crops.
Buprestidae is a family of beetles known as jewel beetles or metallic wood-boring beetles because of their glossy iridescent colors. Larvae of this family are known as flatheaded borers. The family is among the largest of the beetles, with some 15,500 species known in 775 genera. In addition, almost 100 fossil species have been described.
This beetle is roughly 4 millimeters long. It has a narrow body with a large, convex head and large eyes. It is shiny purple-red in color with whitish spots and it has yellowish hairs along parts of its elytra. Male and female look similar. The beetle has been collected from acacia trees. [1]
An elytron is a modified, hardened forewing of certain insect orders, notably beetles (Coleoptera) and a few of the true bugs (Hemiptera); in most true bugs, the forewings are instead called hemelytra, as only the basal half is thickened while the apex is membranous. An elytron is sometimes also referred to as a shard.
Acacia, commonly known as the wattles or acacias, is a large genus of shrubs and trees in the subfamily Mimosoideae of the pea family Fabaceae. Initially it comprised a group of plant species native to Africa and Australia, with the first species A. nilotica described by Linnaeus. Controversy erupted in the early 2000s when it became evident that the genus as it stood was not monophyletic, and that several divergent lineages needed to be placed in separate genera. It turned out that one lineage comprising over 900 species mainly native to Australia was not closely related to the mainly African lineage that contained A. nilotica—the first and type species. This meant that the Australian lineage would need to be renamed. Botanist Les Pedley named this group Racosperma, which was inconsistently adopted. Australian botanists proposed that this would be more disruptive than setting a different type species and allowing this large number of species to remain Acacia, resulting in the two African lineages being renamed Vachellia and Senegalia, and the two New World lineages renamed Acaciella and Mariosousa. This was officially adopted, but many botanists from Africa and elsewhere disagreed that this was necessary.
