Flat-faced longhorned beetle – Protilemoides buergersi Kriesche, 1923, of Western Highlands / Papua New Guinea around 2500m ASL

Protilemoides buergersi Kriesche, 1923 is a rarely documented longhorn beetle of the family Cerambycidae, subfamily Lamiinae and tribe Morimopsini. It is the only described species in the genus Protilemoides and is known from New Guinea. The male holotype was collected by the German zoologist Theodor Joseph Bürgers at Schraderberg (Schrader-Range) in present-day Papua New Guinea, at approximately 2,100 m above sea level, between 22 and 31 May 1913 during the Kaiserin-Augusta River Expedition. Kriesche described the specimen as 24 mm long, excluding most of the projecting terminal structures, with antennae measuring 54 mm and therefore more than twice the body length. The beetle is predominantly matt iron-black with sparse dark rust-coloured pubescence, dark reddish-brown antennae and silky golden-brown hairs on the distal portions of the tibiae and tarsi. Its most distinctive morphological features include sharp lateral and posterior spines on the pronotum, strongly projecting spines at the shoulders and apices of the elytra, and conspicuously elongated antennae. The specific epithet buergersi honours Theodor Joseph Bürgers, who collected the type specimen.