Abstract
The superfamily Curculionoidea contains over 60,000 described species worldwide (Oberprieler et al. 2007). Knowledge of their distribution is still incomplete, with particular regard for several poorly or not yet completely investigated countries. Moreover, a large number of unidentified specimens of various geographical origin are conserved in museums throughout the world, and further unpublished data for many species can be recovered from the study of public and private collections.
Recent investigations in Pakistan by the first author have already increased the knowledge of Curculionidae in that region, with the addition of several species new for the fauna of the country (Ahmed et al. 2014a, 2014b). A preliminary checklist of the known species from Pakistan was recently published (Ahmed & Legalov 2015). Particular efforts have been devoted to the knowledge of the Lixinae: Cleonini. The tribe Cleonini numbers almost 600 taxa at species rank, included in about 90 genera, mainly distributed in the Palaearctic and Afrotropical regions, with limited expansion to the Indo-Malayan region and North America (Meregalli 2014). Ahmed & Legalov (2015) list 35 species of Cleonini for the fauna of Pakistan.
Two further species of Lixinae: Cleonini: Pycnodactylopsis hypocrita (Chevrolat, 1873) and Maximus mimosae (Olivier, 1807) were later found by the first author and his collaborators. The specimens are conserved in the private collection of the first author, in Pakistan (ZACP). The second author had meanwhile examined another specimen of the first species from Pakistan, conserved at the Zoologische Staatsammlung, Munchen (Germany) (ZSM).