Four new species of the diving beetle genus Laccophilus Leach, 1815 from Madagascar (Coleoptera, Dytiscidae, Laccophilini) Author Manuel, Michaël Sorbonne Université, Institut de Systématique, Evolution, Biodiversité (UMR 7205), MNHN SU CNRS EPHE UA, Case 05, 7 quai St Bernard, 75005 Paris, France. & michael. manuel @ upmc. fr; http: // orcid. org / 0000 - 0001 - 9728 - 5580 michael.manuel@upmc.fr Author Ramahandrison, Andriamirado T. Sorbonne Université, Institut de Systématique, Evolution, Biodiversité (UMR 7205), MNHN SU CNRS EPHE UA, Case 05, 7 quai St Bernard, 75005 Paris, France. & Département de Biologie et Ecologie Végétales, Faculté des Sciences, BP 906, Université d’Antananarivo, Antananarivo, Madagascar. mirad. 95 @ gmail. com; http: // orcid. org / 0000 - 0002 - 0833 - 8730 mirad.95@gmail.com text Zootaxa 2020 2020-08-07 4822 4 482 502 journal article 8775 10.11646/zootaxa.4822.4.2 847ff980-f84b-46a1-9e94-37d1cd058637 1175-5326 4401787 D1AF5AD7-E23A-4121-B6E6-4F31B430D9B4 The Laccophilus laeticulus -group Diagnosis . Members of this group are characterised by: body dorso-ventrally flattened (not subcylindrical); elytra dark ferrugineous to dark brown with distinct pale subbasal transverse band; dorsal reticulation double (discernible at least on pronotum disk and scutellar region of elytra); metacoxal plates with weakly developed semicircular stridulation apparatus; metacoxal process posteriorly truncate, not expanded; posterior margin of apical abdominal ventrite modified, strongly sinuate on both sides of midline, with medial part distinctly produced; male apical abdominal ventrite strongly asymmetric, with distinct process on left side; median lobe of aedeagus in lateral view slightly angled, narrowing distinctly from middle to apex, with dorsal outline close to apex smooth (without minute ridges). The laeticulus -group is exclusively Afrotropical (mainland Africa south of Sahara and Madagascar ). Species list . With the species newly described below, the laeticulus -group comprises the following species (distribution data for previously described species from Biström et al. 2015 ): - Laccophilus laeticulus Régimbart, 1895 (from Guinea and Sierra Leone ); - Laccophilus occidentalis Biström, Nilsson & Bergsten, 2015 (from Gambia , Senegal , Mali , Guinea , Sierra Leone , Ivory Coast , Ghana , Benin , Nigeria , Central African Republic and Zaire ); - Laccophilus rakouthae sp. nov. (known only from the Ankaratra massif in central-southern Madagascar ); - Laccophilus transversovittatus Biström, Nilsson & Bergsten, 2015 (widespread Madagascar endemic).