Entomologists from Bolivia and Brazil have described a new species of rhinoceros beetle from a subhumid forest in the Southern Bolivian Andes.

The new species belongs to the very rare beetle genus Oryctophileurus.

“Like the other species of the genus, the new species might be rare or has a cryptic way of life,” wrote Dr Robert Perger from the Colección Boliviana de Fauna and Dr Paschoal Grossi from the Universidade Federal do Paraná, co-authors of the paper published in the journal ZooKeys.

The beetle, named Oryctophileurus guerrai, measures about 2 cm long by 1 cm wide.

“The species is named after our friend and colleague, Fernando ‘Fideo’ Guerra, for his lifetime commitment to the investigation of the Bolivian fauna. His participation in the actual survey in the southern Bolivian Andes has led to the discovery and description of several previously unknown taxa, and he was also the first to collect an individual of Oryctophileurus guerrai.”

Oryctophileurus guerrai resembles known species O. armicollis, but can be distinguished “by the distance between the inner teeth on the dorsal pronotal protuberance, and in females by the inner teeth separated by only a small fissure.”

Two specimens (female and male) of Oryctophileurus guerrai were collected in the northwestern buffer zone of the Tariquía Flora and Fauna National Reserve, department of Tarija, Bolivia.

“Oryctophileurus guerrai is known only from the northwestern area of Tariquía National Reserve in the southern Bolivian Andes. The forest in this area is considered subandine subhumid, semi-deciduous, Tucuman-Bolivian forest with a mean annual temperature of 18.7 °C and an annual rainfall of 1334 mm,” the scientists wrote in the paper.

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Bibliographic information: Perger R, Grossi PC. 2013. Revision of the rhinoceros beetle genus Oryctophileurus Kolbe with description of a new species, the male of O. varicosus Prell, and notes on biogeography (Scarabaeoidea, Dynastinae, Phileurini). ZooKeys 346: 1–16; doi: 10.3897/zookeys.346.6114