Aclees taiwanensis Kôno, 1933

Meregalli, Massimo, Boriani, Marco, Taddei, Andrea, Hsu, Chen-Fu, Tseng, Wei-Zhe & Mouttet, Raphaëlle, 2020, A new species of Aclees from Taiwan with notes on other species of the genus (Coleoptera: Curculionidae: Molytinae), Zootaxa 4868 (1), pp. 1-26 : 12

Aclees taiwanensis Kôno, 1933

Aclees taiwanensis Kôno, 1933: 182 .

This species was described based on two specimens from “Baibara, 1♂, 13/VII.1927, K. Kiruchi ” and “Kanshirei, 1♂, 14/IV.1907, Prof. S. Matsumura ”. The type specimens ( EIHU) were recently examined and a lectotype was designated ( Meregalli et al. 2020) .

Recent research led to the collection of several other specimens, most of which were found in the surroundings of Taipei, where the species seems to be relatively common.

Distribution. Taiwan. Intercepted in France ( Perrin 1997, as Aclees cribratus ; Mouttet et al., 2020, as Aclees sp. cf. foveatus ) and Italy ( Ciampolini et al. 2005 as A. cribratus ) and widely naturalized in Italy ( Benelli et al. 2014, as Aclees sp. cf. foveatus ). The specimens sequenced from Italy and France do not differ from those from Taiwan, thus we consider highly probable that the European specimens were introduced from Taiwan. Specimens of Aclees from China, Fujian were listed as A. taiwanensis in the Catalogue of Palaearctic Curculionoidea ( Alonso-Zarazaga et al. 2017). However, considering the presence of the two similar species in Taiwan, the identification of the specimens from Fujian cannot be confirmed, and we prefer to limit the confirmed native distribution of A. taiwanensis to Taiwan.