Abstract
x Twenty years ago, a new buprestid genus and species, Oaxacanthaxia viridis Bellamy 1991 was described for specimens collected by Jim Cope during the summer of 1989 in the Isthmus of Tehuantepec, Oaxaca, México (Bellamy 1991). The summer following that publication (1992), a group of 10 buprestiphiles from Australia, Czech Republic, Germany, the United States and Russia combined forces to collect in southern México (Guerrerro and Oaxaca), hoping to find, among many other taxa, O. viridis. That quest was partly successful (only one female specimen collected by Dave Verity), but completely unexpectedly Ted MacRae, Gayle Nelson and Dave Verity collected a second species of Oaxacanthaxia, which was described as O. nigroaenea by Nelson & MacRae (1994). Twelve years later, Niehuis & Gottwald (2006) described a new species from Nicaragua: O. vandenberghei, named for Manfred Niehuis’ nephew Eric van den Berghe, who had lived and collected for several years in Nicaragua. Most recently Hornburg & Gottwald (2008) described O. aenea from Venezuela, greatly expanding the range of the genus.
References
Bellamy, C. L. (1991) Oaxacanthaxia viridis, a new genus and species (Coleoptera: Buprestidae) from Mexico with Old World affinities. Insecta Mundi, 4(1–4)(1990), 81–86.
Bellamy, C. L. (1996) Further consideration of the subtribe Thomassetiina Bellamy: a new species, new records and placement in the contemporary classification (Coleoptera: Buprestidae). Annals of the Transvaal Museum, 36, 215–222.
Bellamy, C. L. (2003) An illustrated summary of the higher classification of the superfamily Buprestoidea (Coleoptera). Folia Heyrovskyana, Supplementum 10, 197 pp., 44 plates.
Bellamy, C. L. (2008) A World Catalogue and Bibliography of the Jewel Beetles (Coleoptera: Buprestoidea). Volume 3: Buprestinae: Pterobothrini through Agrilinae: Rhaeboscelina. Pensoft Series Faunistica, No. 78, pp. 1261–1931, Pensoft Publishers, Sofia-Moscow.
Bílý, S. (2000) A new concept of Anthaxiini (Coleoptera: Buprestidae). Folia Heyrovskyana, 8(2), 109–114.
Harris, R. A. (1979) A glossary of surface sculpturing. Occasional Papers in Entomology (State of California, Department of Food and Agriculture, Division of Plant Industry, Laboratory Services), 28, 31 pp., 8 plates, 44 figures.
Hornburg, M & S. Gottward. (2008) Oaxacanthaxia aenea sp. nov. (Coleoptera: Buprestidae), a new species from the coastal plains of northwestern Venezuela. Folia Heyrovskyana, Series A, 16(1–2), 1–8.
Nelson, G. H. & T. C. MacRae. (1994) Oaxacanthaxia nigroaenea Nelson and MacRae, a new species from Mexico (Coleoptera: Buprestidae). The Coleopterists Bulletin, 48(2), 149–152.
Niehuis, M. & S. Gottwald. (2006) Oaxacanthaxia vandenberghei n. sp. ein neuer Prachtkäfer aus Nicaragua (Coleoptera: Buprestidae). Mitteilungen des Internationalen Entomologischen Vereins, 31(1–2), 31–36.