Stegnocephala perplexa (Suffrian, 1863)

S. perplexa is similar to S. cuprascens, but half as large, brighter yellow, with unicolored undersides and legs. Besides the eyes, only the ends of the antennae are black. The head is flat; the front is lightly indented, but not withdrawn; a shallow cross-indent between the eyes separates the frons from the forehead. The surfaces are glossy bright yellow-red, without clear punctures. The long, extended, shallowly grooved eyes, which are, especially in the smaller male, tightly pressed together at the top, are black. The mouthparts are light brown. The thin antennae of the female measure not half as long as the body. The narrow root segment is almost equally wide and about three times longer than its width, a little curved. The second is a short ellipse; the succeeding two segments are almost linear, each twice as long as the second. The rest are pressed together and expand into triangles at the front. From the sixth segment onwards, each is somewhat longer than the fourth; the four last segments are again gradually narrower. The last segment is linear, with few noticeable protrusions. The color is bright yellow; the upper segments, until the middle of the fifth, are murky black. The antennae of the female are shorter, in all places slenderer, almost filamentous, but otherwise not different from the male. The pronotum is wide and quite flat; its front half slightly arches over the sharp rectangular front edges, where it somewhat compresses together and narrows down. The sides are finely edged, almost meeting each other in a line towards the front. The hind edge is wide and sharp, on either side widely hollowed out, and ends in a short mid-tip with clear double edges. Just in front of the mid-tip, on either side, lies a short indent, and a second, vaguer indent stretching forwards over the latter half of the side edge. The surfaces are fine and dispersedly punctured on the outside, with flat interspaces, bright muddy brown. The scutellum slopes steeply upward; is long, triangular, and rounded off short at the back, with clear front dimples; and bears a glossy copper brown color. One abnormally large female in the Museum Deyrolle has a very bright yellow mid field. With the other specimens available to me, the mid field appears only a washed-out yellow-brown. The elytra are not 1/6 longer than they are wide; from the shoulders, they curve towards the back, becoming narrower as they supplement the inverted-egg-shaped contour of the body. The back, from the scutellum tip onwards, falls back only gradually; the sides slope more steeply. Behind the wide, flat front edges, the roots are pressed down through the more deeply engraved front ends of the puncture-stripes. These puncture-stripes constitute one of the flat cross-stripes broken up by the raised interspaces and running between the scutellum and shoulder humps. The shoulder humps rise up as sturdy protrusions. The moderate side flanks have very long, downward-hanging matt-black lower margins. The puncture-stripes are very regular and strong, a little fainter at the back, indented at the top in flatter furrows that are always stronger along the sides. After these furrows are interspaces that are only flat at the top; the farther outward they are located, the clearer and rounder the ribs they form. The ninth stripe widens out over the side flanks into a wide cross-indent. The color is a beautiful, shiny copper brown similar to that of our Chrysomela cuprea. The interspaces have traces of punctures that are fine and dispersed on the outside. The pygidium and under sides are finely and dispersedly punctured; the legs are bright yellow. The front edge of the prosternum extends into a wide cup shape. The middle surfaces are wrinkly punctured, indented at the back and hollowed out, with stronger, protuberant hind edges. The last segment of the male is lightly pressed downwards along its length; the larger and notably more faintly striped female has an egg-shaped groove that shines brightly in the inside.

[Translated from the original German in Suffrian, 1863].