Pelecotheca (Cerotachina) sp. male (pe-taxon #14)
This appears to be another new, hitherto undescribed, species closely related to Cerotachina – it has no median discals and antenna-3 is very shallowly multifissicorn. That is, the third antennal segment has bumps on both sides covered with tufts of long hairs.
These bumps are shorter than the branches on my French Guianan Cerotachina and a lot shorter than the branches on my French Guianan Cryptocladocera but it clearly displays an early step in an evolutionary process that finally arrived at the extremely long branches on the Cryptocladocera.
It might be tempting to split this taxon into yet another genus (as Townsend would have done!), based on the short branches/bumps on the antennae. But I would prefer to actually remove Cerotachina Arnaud, 1963 and group everything under the genus Cryptocladocera Bezzi, 1923 (being the oldest valid name). My reasoning for this is that: the 2 genera have very similar morphology; have very similar male genitalia; and it is highly likely that other species will be discovered with more intermediate forms of antennal morphology.
