Aclees hirayamai 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 : 14-16

Aclees hirayamai Kôno, 1933

Aclees hirayamai Kôno, 1933: 183 .

This species was described from Taiwan and from small Iriomote Island, east of Taiwan, politically part of Japan. It belongs to a well differentiated group of species, characterized by shallower punctation on the rostrum and pronotum. It is morphologically very similar to Aclees juvencus , an apparently widespread species, and the precise relationships between the two taxa are uncertain. According to the molecular and morphological data, it appears to be the sister species to Aclees porosus Pascoe, 1871 , whose type specimens were collected on the island of Seram.

Freshly emerged specimens are covered by an exudate of undetermined composition, possibly a wax coating, that is lost in older specimens and in those preserved in collections ( Fig. 8A ). A similar coating, lacking the white zigzag pattern, is also present in fresh specimens of A. taiwanensis , ( Fig. 8B ) and probably also other species.

Distribution. Morimoto (1982) reports this species from Taiwan, Japan and China. According to our data it is also present in the Philippines.

Figures

FIGURE 8. Freshly emerged specimens covered with exudate: Aclees hirayamai Kôno, 1933, Taiwan (A). Photo Yun-Sheng Zhang. Aclees taiwanensis Kôno, 1933, Italy, Lombardy, Missaglia. Photo Emma Silviana Mauri (B).