Taiwanocantharis Wittmer, 1984

Švihla, Vladimír, 2011, New taxa of the subfamily Cantharinae (Coleoptera: Cantharidae) from south-eastern Asia, with notes on other species III, Zootaxa 2895, pp. 1-34 : 4-5

Taiwanocantharis Wittmer, 1984 stat. nov.

Cantharis subgenus Taiwanocantharis Wittmer, 1984: 147 .

Type species: Cantharis (Taiwanocantharis) tripunctata Wittmer, 1984 , original designation.

Comments. Wittmer (1984) described the subgenus Taiwanocantharis on the basis of sexual dimorphism of the tarsal claws in both sexes. The males possess rounded basal appendages on outer claws of all legs, while claws in females are without any appendages. Such a definition is unhelpful for genus level classification, because the definitions of species in Cantharidae are based predominantly on males and, when the female of a given species is not available, the species cannot be assigned with certainly to a genus. Many other taxa at the genus level group have been defined in the past by such a sexual differences of shape of the claws, however such a concept of classification seems to be discouraged today, not only for the practical reason, but also because such taxa were found to be frequently polyphyletic (cf. e.g. Okushima 2005). Nevertheless, when species of Cantharis Linnaeus, 1758 from southeastern Asia were examined, it was found, that they belong to a monophyletic lineage, for which the name Taiwanocantharis can be used. Species of this genus as redefined here differ from Cantharis by the metallic green elytra (yellow, brown or black in the Cantharis ); they are distributed in mountain systems around the border between the Palaearctic and the Oriental regions from Nepal to Taiwan and they only overlap with Cantharis -species in the Chinese provinces of Shaanxi and Sichuan.

Distribution. Nepal, India: Assam; northern Myanmar, northern Thailand, northern Laos, northern Vietnam, Taiwan, China: Gansu, Shaanxi, Sichuan, Xizang, Yunnan, Guanxi and Guangdong.

List of species. The species can be divided into three groups defined as follows:

1. T. tripunctata species-group. Parameres wide and flat, apex of dorsal part of the aedeagus with at most very slight lateroapical teeth, not emarginate apically, sometimes with slight middle tooth, claws of female simple. For determination see Wittmer (1984), Švihla (2004) and Kopetz (2008). Group includes:

Taiwanocantharis chumbiensis (Champion, 1926) comb. nov. (from Cantharis subgen. Cyrtomoptila ) Taiwanocantharis drahuska ( Švihla, 2004) comb. nov. (from Cordicantharis )

When describing this species, only one male was available. Later, examination of other males shows that the laterophyses are not fused apically as in the genus Cordicantharis Švihla, 1999 .

Taiwanocantharis gansosichuana (Kazantsev, 2010) comb. nov. (from Cantharis s. str.). Possibly synonym of preceding species.

Taiwanocantharis pallidithorax ( Wittmer, 1984) comb. nov. (from Cantharis subgen. Taiwanocantharis )

Taiwanocantharis tripunctata ( Wittmer, 1984) comb. nov. (from Cantharis subgen. Taiwanocantharis ).

2. T. malaisei species-group. Parameres narrower than in the preceding group, dorsal part of the aedeagus with at most moderate lateroapical teeth, with apex often more or less emarginate, pronotum mostly with one central and several smaller prebasal dark spots, rarely fused with the central spot, claws of females with basal appendages as in males. For the determination see Wittmer (1989, 1997a) and Švihla (2005). Group includes:

Taiwanocantharis dedicata ( Švihla, 2005) comb. nov. (from Cantharis s. str.)

Taiwanocantharis inthanonensis (Wittmer, 1997) comb. nov. (from Cantharis s. str.) Taiwanocantharis kambaitiensis ( Wittmer, 1989) comb. nov. (from Cantharis s. str.) Taiwanocantharis malaisei ( Wittmer, 1989) comb. nov. (from Cantharis s. str.)

Taiwanocantharis metallipennis (Wittmer, 1997) comb. nov. (from Cantharis s. str.) Taiwanocantharis quinquenotatithorax ( Pic, 1914) comb. nov. (from Cantharis s. str.) Taiwanocantharis seinghukuensis ( Wittmer, 1989) comb. nov. (from Cantharis s. str.) Taiwanocantharis shergaoensis ( Wittmer, 1989) comb. nov. (from Cantharis s. str.).

3. T. thibetana species group. Dorsal part of the aedeagus with strongly developed lateroapical teeth curved inwards. For the determination see Wittmer (1997a, b). Group includes:

Taiwanocantharis satoi (Wittmer, 1997) comb. nov. (from Cantharis s. str.)

Taiwanocantharis thibetana (Gorham, 1889) comb. nov. (from Cantharis s. str.) Taiwanocantharis thibetanomima (Wittmer, 1997) comb. nov. (from Cantharis s. str.).