Tiger Fruit&Flower Chafer (Atrichelaphinis tigrina) by Riaan Stals at 6:59 pm 28/01/13

Confidence: I'm as sure as I can be.

Notes: Yellowish-brown fruit chafer, stocky, 10-12 mm long, mostly on flowers in grassland. ** Near-endemic to South Africa, Lesotho & Swaziland: along the southern and southeastern coastal regions from about Mossel Bay eastwards, through KZN (but skirting Zululand) & Lesotho to the eastern margins of the Free State, and through Swaziland & Mpumalanga to Soutpansberg/Blouberg and through Getagun to the eastern bits of the NW Province. ** Elytra most often with very variable brown mottling, more or less arranged in three longitudinal strips; mottling may coalesce to form transverse bands [1st picture here, and linked observations from southern Cape], but they need not coalesce [2nd picture here]. The more usual mottled brown elytral pigmentation may be reduced to a yellowish brown with fewer and smaller irregular dark markings, which appearance is similar to that of Atrichelaphinis nigropunctulata, a much scarcer species occurring mainly in the Mpulanga grasslands. The latter species has the first two elytral striae as a single groove each, whilst those grooves in Atrichelpahinis tigrina are double [nicely visible here on much enlarged 1st photo]; sculpture of pygidium also different between these species, but not visible here or in currently linked observations. ** Pronotum with more [here] or variously less [linked observation from southern Cape] dark centre, which may be dark greenish [here] or dark brown [linked observations from southern Cape]. There may be irregular, scale-like, white spots on the dorsum [none here; present in linked observations from southern Cape].