Wulongius qilinger Tian & Huang, 2021

Tian, Mingyi, Huang, Sunbin, Jia, Xinyang & Zhao, Yi, 2021, Two new genera and three new species of cavernicolous trechines from the western Wuling Mountains, China (Coleoptera, Carabidae, Trechinae), ZooKeys 1059, pp. 57-78 : 57

Wulongius qilinger Tian & Huang sp. nov.

Figures 1 , 2 , 3 , 4 , 5

Type material.

Holotype female, cave Qiankou Dong, Tongluo, Jiangkou, Wulong, Chongqing, 29.32°N, 107.91°E, 1103 m, 2021-IV-14, leg. "Wu Ya" (a nickmane of Mr Hongying Wu) & Mingyi Tian, in SCAU.

Diagnosis.

A medium-sized aphaenopsian trechine species, with a distinctly elongated body and thin appendages, without eyes and pigmentation, elytra remarkably expanded laterally and partially concealing median part of elytral margins.

Description.

Length: 6.5 mm, width: 1.6 mm. Habitus as in Figure 2 . Body yellow, antennae, palps and tarsi pale; head covered with a few sparse setae, pronotum covered with dense and long setae, elytra smooth and glabrous in most parts, but with short and sparse setae along lateral margins, underside of head with a few setae laterally and ventrally, sparsely setose on ventral thorax and abdominal ventrites medially; moderately shining. Microsculpture reduced on head; striated on pronotum and elytra.

Head much longer than wide, HLm/HW = 2.68, HLl/HW = 1.96; genae not expanded, widest at about middle of head excluding mandibles, gradually narrowed posteriad, neck short and narrow; frons and vertex moderately convex; frontal furrows nearly parallel-sided, shortly divergent apically, ending at about middle of head; anterior and posterior supraorbital pores located at about basal 3/8 and 1/5 of head, respectively; clypeus 4-setose; labrum transverse, frontal margin almost straight, 6-setose; mentum bisetose, tooth rather narrow, bifid at tip, slightly longer than half of the lateral lobes; ligula 10-setose at apex, inner 2 much longer than others; distal palpomeres of maxilla and labium 1.3 times as long as the penultimate palpomeres; suborbital pores much closer to neck constriction than to submentum (Fig. 3A ); antennae pubescent from pedicle to 11th antennomeres, scape not pubescent, stouter and shorter than other articles, with several long setae; relative length of each antennomere compared with scape as follows: the 1st (1.0), 2nd (1.4), 3rd (1.9), 4th (2.2), 5th (2.5), 6th (2.3), 7th (2.1), 8th (1.8), 9th (1.8), 10th (1.5) and 11th (2.0).

Prothorax distinctly tumid at sides, propleura slightly wider than pronotum, PrW/PnW = 1.1, visible from above, widest a little before basal 1/3, wider than head, PrW/HW = 1.2; pronotum much longer than wide, PnL /PnW = 1.6, shorter than head excluding mandibles, PL/HL l = 0.9; widest at about 3/7 of pronotum from base; lateral margins finely bordered throughout, gently contracted forwards and backwards, slightly sinuate before hind angles which are wide and blunt though more or less rectangular; frontal angles rounded off; base straight, front margin slightly arcuate, both unbordered, base slightly wider than front margin; only anterior latero-marginal setae present, at about 2/9 from front margin; disc slightly convex, mid-line well-marked; both fore and basal transversal impressions faint, basal foveae shallow. Scutellum quite large.

Elytra (Fig. 2 , 3D ) almost as long as fore body including mandibles, much longer than wide, EL/EW = 1.9, almost twice as wide as prothorax, EW/PrW = 2.1; base unbordered, lateral margins not serrate but ciliate throughout, widest at about middle, humeral angles obtuse, margins invisible from above in middle; apical striole reduced; basal pore present, anterior and posterior dorsal pores on the 3rd stria at basal 2/7 and apical 4/9 of elytra, respectively; preapical pores located at apical anastomosis of 3rd and 4th striae; only an apical pore present, subequal to suture and to margin of elytra; the anguloapical pore absent; only 2nd and 3rd pores of marginal umbilicate group close to the marginal gutter, 1st pore closer to 4th than to 2nd; the 7th and 8th pors distant from marginal gutter.

Legs densely pubescent; 1st tarsomere shorter than 2nd-4th combined in fore legs, whereas slightly longer and as long as in middle and hind legs, respectively; tibiae without longitudinal sulci.

Ventrite IV-VI bisetose, VII quadrisetose in female.

Male. unknown.

Etymology.

Referring to the Qilinger Cave Exploration Team (Nanning), led by Mr Lixin Chen, a famous TV reporter on cave exploration in China.

Distribution.

China (Chongqing). Known only from limestone cave Qiankou Dong (Fig. 1 ). Qiankou Dong (Figs 4 , 5 ) is located at about 200 m from the beautiful show cave Furong Dong to the northeast and probably was the upper part of the Furong Dong cave system in the past (Yuanhai Zhang pers. comm.). It was well surveyed by the Hong Meigui Cave Exploration Society (U.K.) in 2003. The cave is 114 m long, with two entrances, one in a forest near a farm house and the other in a cliff. There is a 55 m deep vertical pit, although the passage of the cave is more or less horizontal. The single specimen of the new species was discovered by "Wu Ya" (Mr Hongying Wu, an active and well-known caver, who discovered many Tiankengs in China by using Google Earth) and M. Tian. Other cave animals also observed in Qiankou Dong are millipedes ( Oxidus gracilis (C.L. Koch, 1847), Eutrichodesmus sp., Epanerchodus sp., and Glyphiulus sp.), a cricket ( Tachycines sp.), an earwig ( Challia fletcheri Burr, 1904), spiders ( Parasteatoda tepidariorum (C.L. Koch, 1841) and Pholcus sp.), and an ant-loving beetle ( Batrisocenus sp.).

Figures

Figure 1. A distribution map showing the localities of the three surveyed caves (stars) and the known species and subspecies of the genus Qianotrechus Ueno, 2000 (dots) A Shigao Dong B Qiankou Dong C Qianlong Dong.

Figure 2. Wulongius qilinger gen. nov. and sp. nov., habitus, holotype female.

Figure 3. Ventral head (A-C) and elytral chaetotaxy (E, F) of cave beetles A, D Wulongius qilinger gen. nov. and sp. nov. B, E Qianotrechus congcongae sp. nov. C, F Qianlongius zhoui gen. nov. and sp. nov.).

Figure 4. Map of Qiankou Dong, to show where the holotype of Wulongius qilinger gen. nov. and sp. nov. was discovered) (courtesy of Prof. Yuanhai Zhang and Hong Meigui Cave Exploration Society).

Figure 5. Cave Qiankou Dong A entrance in the cliff B team photo outside the cave C surveying in the cave D the vertical pit E a running individual of Wulongius qilinger gen. nov. and sp. nov. F a millipede, Glyphiulus sp. (team photo courtesy of Mr Lixin Chen).