Stegnocephala cyanoptera (Stål, 1857)

S. cyanoceptera is ostensibly the most common species of its group [the third Rotte], and also of almost all the available collections I’ve compared, in which it is mostly known as Monachus chlybeipennis Dej. This species also comes from Stål; in terms of the structure of its prosternum, however, it belongs undoubtedly to the previous group [the second Rotte], in which it bridges the species with rib-shaped pronotal interspaces and those with smoothly curved interspaces. The head is flat, shallowly indented between the eyes. The frons is almost rectangular, also sideways supported by the sharp edges of the backward-stepping cheeks. The surfaces are glossy like glass, rusty red, only narrow but deeply rounded in the middle; with the male, the eyes, which are tightly pressed together at the top, are black. The antennae are short; the second segment is egg-shaped; the following ones are equally long and each about twice as long as the second; the next segments from the fifth onwards are clearly pressed together, only slightly widened at the top. The four lower segments are rusty red, the others are black. The pronotum is short and wide, strongly narrowed in front; the greater half arches upward falls quite steeply after the forehead; the sides are widely edged and run together towards the front in wide arches. The hind edges are short and have broad tips, somewhat rising above a cross-indent. The posterior edge is closely serrated, smoothly hollowed out on either side, ending in a short mid-tip with soft double edges. In front of the scutellum on either side lies a short, deep cross-indent. The surfaces are glossy rusty red. The scutellum is long and triangular, sloping upwards, cutting off abruptly at the back and with the usual furrows in the front, and glossy black. The elytra are twice as long as the pronotum, and rise upwards beginning at the roots. They form smooth bumps around the scutellum tip; on the interior side of the narrow but protuberant shoulder bumps, they are narrow but deeply indented along the body’s length. Behind the shoulder bumps, the elytra are pressed together and then somewhat widened again in bulges, rounded off widely at the back. The side flanks are pulled down entirely, and over them lies another clear and round indent. The puncture-stripes are very regular, consisting of crowded, lightly engraved rows of punctures, not finer at the back. The front ends of the three stripes that originate at the shoulder bumps (the sixth to the eighth) are somewhat curved. The interspaces are smoothly curved, the outer ones rising somewhat more sharply and more rib-shaped. The color is a beautiful, pure iron blue, occasionally dominated by copper or green. The enveloping rims of the side flanks are somewhat hollowed out, wrinkled along their lengths, and black. The pygidium is marked by crowded and fine punctures, thinly haired, with undersides and legs colored a uniform rusty red. Abdomen and parapleura are softly and wrinkly punctured. The front edge of the prosternum is extended into a cup-shaped, hollowed-out curve that includes the mouthparts; the middle bulges upward across and then falls. The posterior edge is almost squarely cut off with sharp, protuberant side edges. Even the midchest is rectangular, indented in the front and with its sharp side bars, tightly attached to the front chest. The last segment of the male is indented along its length; the last segment of the female, which is much rarer, has a large, elliptical groove that is glossy in the inside.

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