Cangshanaltica castanea ( Gruev, 1985 ) Damaška & Ruan & Fikáček, 2022

Damaška, Albert František, Ruan, Yongying & Fikáček, Martin, 2022, The genus Cangshanaltica (Coleoptera: Chrysomelidae: Alticinae): overview, new species, and notes on species complexes, Zootaxa 5219 (1), pp. 49-64 : 50-52

Cangshanaltica castanea ( Gruev, 1985) comb. nov.

Figs 3 , 8A

Taizonia castanea Gruev, 1985: 126

Ivalia gruevi Nadein, 2013: 396 (nom. nov. for castanea Gruev , not Samuelson)

Type locality: China: Da-laen-saen (type locality identity is discussed below) .

Type material examined. HOLOTYPE (male, BMNH): (1) Holotype, (2) G. C. Champion Coll. B. M. 1927- 409, (3) Da-laen-saen, China. J. J. Walker, (4) HOLOTYPE; (5) Taizonia castanea Gruev sp. n.; ◉ PARATYPES (1 male; 4 female, BMNH): (1) Da-laen-saen, China. J. J. Walker, (2) PARATYPE.

Additional material examined. 6 spec. (4 male, 2 female, BMNH): (1) G. C. Champion Coll. B. M. 1927-409; (2) Da-laen-saen, China. J. J. Walker; (3) Taizonia castanea Gruev det. A. S. Konstantinov, 2003 ; 9 spec. (9 male, BMNH): (1) Nyew-tew I., China, J. J. W [alker]; (2) ◉ 4 spec. (3 male, 1 female, NMPC, ADPC): (1) CHINA — Zhejiang prov., Lishui pref., Lu’aocun (炉岙村); Monkey Valley (Ñšẽ); 27°54′55.2″N 119°11′55.4″E; 1100 m; 11. v. 2019; A. F. Damaška lgt.; (2) VOUCHER SPECIMEN DNA collection No. AFD-235; 236; 282 283; 284 Albert F. Damaška coll.; (3) Cangshanaltica cf. castanea (spec. complex), A. F. Damaška det. 2022 ◉ 2 spec. (2 male, SZPT): (1) Hangzhou Wuyun Mt. (杭州五云山), on moss, under tree root, 2021-III-25, leg. Wei Wang (Ɨ ‼) .

Redescription.

Habitus. Body oval-rounded, convex, holotype 1.6 mm long, 1.2 mm wide, 0.9 mm high. Dorsal surfaces chestnut brown without metallic luster. Ventral surfaces light brown.

Head. Nearly hypognathous, triangular, chestnut brown. Frontal calli flat, feebly developed, distinctly delimited anteriorly, feebly delimited posteriorly. Frontal ridge wide, flat, not projecting; interantennal space as wide as diameter of eye. Supraantennal, suprafrontal, orbital and supraorbital sulci shallow but developed. Orbit narrow. Frontal ridge, orbit and frons impunctate. Antennae with 11 antennomeres, short, reaching anterior ¼ of elytra. Antennomeres I and II large, wide, light yellowish brown; antennomere III slightly elongated, antennomeres IV–VI similar in length, slender, antennomere VI wider than V. Antennomere VII short, with a distinct distal protrusion; antennomeres VIII–XI gradually widening, forming a long and slender antennal club.

Thorax. Pronotum brown, wide, convex, feebly punctate by scattered shallow punctures.Anterolateral pronotal setiferous pore placed in the middle of lateral pronotal margin. Posterior edges of pronotum sharp. Elytra convex, wide, feebly irregularly punctured. Maximal width of elytra 1/3 wider than maximal width of pronotum. Procoxal cavity widely open posteriorly.Anterior metaventral process completely covering mesoventrite between mesocoxae, developing a pentagonal “horseshoe-like” structure. Legs light brown. Metatibiae nearly straight, not visibly curved laterally. Metatarsomere I elongated.

Abdomen and genitalia. Abdominal ventrite I as long as ventrites II and III combined. Median lobe of aedeagus variable in width, and in sharpness of the apex ( Fig. 3G,H ). Apex pointed, arrow-like. Median lobe widened from apex to basal part. Basal orifice pyriform, reaching ¼ of the median lobe of aedeagus length. Spermatheca slender, duct without coils. Vaginal palpi widely separated apically.

Generic placement. Cangshanaltica castanea had been described in Taizonia by Gruev (1985), a genus subsequently synonymized with Ivalia by Duckett et al. (2006). Due to homonymy with Ivalia castanea (Samuelson, 1966) , a new name Ivalia gruevi was proposed for the species by Nadein (2013). Our placement of Gruev’s species in Cangshanaltica makes Nadein’s replacement name redundant (ICZN Art 59.4). We move the species to Cangshanaltica based on the following characters: (1) antennomere VII bearing a slight distal protrusion; (2) metaventrite bearing an anterior, horseshoe-like process reaching mesocoxae and covering the mesoventrite; (3) anterolateral pronotal setiferous pore placed in the middle of the pronotal margin; and (4) round, ovate, and convex body shape. Cangshanaltica castanea is similar to other Chinese Cangshanaltica species distributed in lowlands— C. sprynari , and C. fuanensis . The species can be distinguished using the key below.

Type locality identity and distribution. The type locality “ China: Da-laen-saen” named by Walker has been discussed by authors who have revised J. Walker’s Chinese material ( Schawaller & Aston 2017; Smetana 2009). According to their findings, the most likely type locality of C. castanea is China, Zhejiang prov., Ningbo pref., Dalei Shan (kDZ山), cca 29.5928 N, 121.2930 E. The second Walker locality in the BMNH material is “Nyew-tew I.” This locality refers most likely to the Nantian Dao Island (Éffl岛) in Zhejiang province, named “Nyew-tew Island” in 19th century Western maps, likely after the island’s peak Niutou Shan (牛Ë山). The second type locality should therefore be: China, Zhejiang prov., Ningbo pref., Nantian Dao (Éffl岛); cca 29.1361 N, 121.9388 E. Additional specimens assigned to the species complex of C. castanea were collected recently in Lu’aocun (炉岙村) in the Lishui prefecture, and in Hangzhou, both in Zhejiang province, China.

Species identity and variability. Cangshanaltica castanea was described based on a type series collected by J. J. Walker. Besides the type series, we examined additional Walker material from the type locality (Da Laen Saen) and its surroundings (Nyew-tew I.). We also collected fresh DNA-grade specimens in southern Zhejiang —they strongly resemble several specimens from the C. castanea type series. All the specimens have similar morphology of external characters and female genitalia, however, the morphology of median lobe of aedeagus is quite variable among all specimens, even within the type material (fig. 3 G–H). Specimens also differ in elytral punctuation (in the holotype and most of Walker’s specimens, elytra have very feeble punctures, in several of Walker’s specimens and all the fresh specimens from Lishui, punctures are shallow but distinctly visible, forming a pitted elytral relief, similar to the surface of a golf ball), and size (males are up to 1.9 mm long). A similar species in external morphology is C. fuanensis Ruan, Konstantinov & Damaška, 2022 , which differs in having a more slender median lobe of aedeagus, but is strongly divergent from the Lishui specimens based on DNA phylogenetic analyses ( Damaška et al. 2021). This strong difference in both mitochondrial and nuclear DNA markers among the two morphologically similar species suggests that the C. castanea species complex can consist of more species which are similar in morphology but phylogenetically isolated from each other. Due to the lack of any DNA-grade material from the two historical collecting sites in Zhejiang, we decided not to treat any of the specimens with different genitalia morphology as distinct species. However, the variability of median lobe of aedeagus in C. castanea in our understanding is apparently larger than in other Cangshanaltica species. The species definition of C. castanea may therefore represent a species complex. A careful analysis of DNA and morphology based on fresh material from more localities in Zhejiang and around (including Walker’s sites) is the only way to yield enough information to resolve the C. castanea species complex.

Figures

FIGURE 3. Cangshanaltica castanea (Gruev, 1985) and its species complex. A—holotype in dorsal view; B—holotype in lateral view; C—holotype in ventral view; D—paratype; E—a specimen from Fengyangshan, Zhejiang, China; F—a non-type specimen from Gruev’s series in NHMB (“Nyew-Tew”); G—median lobe of aedeagus from the holotype specimen in dorsal and lateral views; H—median lobe of aedeagus from a paratype specimen in dorsal and lateral views; I—spermatheca from a paratype; J—vaginal palpi from a paratype; K—tignum from a paratype.

FIGURE 8. Lateral margin of pronotum with the setiferous pore placed almost in the middle—a diagnostic character shared by all known Cangshanaltica species (marked by white arrow in every picture): A—C. castanea; B—C. fuanensis; C—C. guanxiensis; D—C. javana; E—C. luzonica; F—C. marginata; G—C. mindanaoensis; H—C. nigra; I—C. siamensis; J—C. sprynari;, K—C. sp. from Taiwan similar to C. ogatai; L—Ivalia viridipennis with the setiferous pore placed in the apical part of pronotal margin.