The Weevil Genus Rhamphus (Curculionidae, Curculioninae) in Southern Africa—Description of Thirteen New Species

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

Congratulation to this paper! It is interesting so many new taxa in genus not previously reported from southern Africa. This genus is not easy to work, because of its small size. Unfortunately it is not also often collected. It is advantage authors were able to get so many material from this region.

I have no any serious comment, the manuscript was written carefully and in detail. Results are clear, definitions of species are well done, key is well done. Some type errors I indicated continuously in the manuscript. I can only recommend clarification of abbreviations in locality label data. It is better to clarify W means Western Cape, E means Eastern Cape and some others.

There are also some inaccuracies in formal arrangement, which is not task for authors, but for editors. Not all headings are separated from previous text by space, not all headings are in bold.

Roman

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

Author Response

Congratulation to this paper! It is interesting so many new taxa in genus not previously reported from southern Africa. This genus is not easy to work, because of its small size. Unfortunately it is not also often collected. It is advantage authors were able to get so many material from this region. I have no any serious comment, the manuscript was written carefully and in detail. Results are clear, definitions of species are well done, key is well done. Some type errors I indicated continuously in the manuscript. I can only recommend clarification of abbreviations in locality label data. It is better to clarify W means Western Cape, E means Eastern Cape and some others. There are also some inaccuracies in formal arrangement, which is not task for authors, but for editors. Not all headings are separated from previous text by space, not all headings are in bold.

Dear Colleague, thank you very much for your careful reading of our manuscript and your positive opinion.

1. Some type errors I indicated continuously in the manuscript.

We corrected all the type errors which you indicated.

2. I can only recommend clarification of abbreviations in locality label data

We now reported all the current modifications in regions and countries with respect to those written in the labels and clarified the abbreviations when unclear. We specified more adequately that we reported what written on the labels verbatim.

Reviewer 2 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

The article is relevant to the study of Curculionidae, especially because they are neglected groups due to their small size. Check the terminology for the penis.

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

Author Response

The article is relevant to the study of Curculionidae, especially because they are neglected groups due to their small size. Check the terminology for the penis.

Thank you very much for your positive opinion on our manuscript.

Check the terminology for the penis

We modified the text according to some of your suggestions. However, with regard to the terminology of the genitalia, we exactly followed that proposed by Lyal as we specified. In his weevil glossary, under the word Penis, it is clearly reported that it is composed by two parts: the body and the apodemes and concerning the body of the penis it is written: Penis body (male genitalia) – the part of the penis not including the apodemes. This is the part better shown in our figures and useful for the taxonomy of the treated species.

Reviewer 3 Report

Comments and Suggestions for Authors

The paper is of great interest. I would only mention that the "Methods" section could be improved. It doesn't clearly specify that the material comes from both sources: museums and field samples. Regarding the samples, there is little information, for instance, the sampling frequency, if any, is not mentioned.

 

 

Author Response

Reviewer 3. The paper is of great interest. I would only mention that the "Methods" section could be improved. It doesn't clearly specify that the material comes from both sources: museums and field samples. Regarding the samples, there is little information, for instance, the sampling frequency, if any, is not mentioned.

Thank you very much for your positive opinion on our paper.

1. It doesn't clearly specify that the material comes from both sources: museums and field samples.

Actually, as specified in the labels of all the specimens of the type series, all the examined specimens come from public and private collections (as now better explained by the addition of an adequate sentence) and we never collected any of the studied specimens personally.

2.Regarding the samples, there is little information, for instance, the sampling frequency, if any, is not mentioned.

Precisely for the reasons reported in point 1, we were not able to give supplementary information on the collection of the specimens in addition to those written on the labels.