Tag: China

A colorful yet little known snout moth genus from China with 5 new species

A group of beautiful snout moths from China was revised by three scientists from the Institute of Zoology at the Chinese Academy of Sciences.

In their study, recently published in the open access journal Zookeys, entomologists Dr. Mingqiang Wang, Dr. Fuqiang Chen and Prof. Chunsheng Wu describe five new species and two newly recorded for the country.

Despite being morphologically interesting, the snout moth genus Lista remains little known. Usually, its members have bright-coloured wings, often pink, orange, or yellow, which makes them strikingly different from the rest in their subfamily (Epipaschiinae). In fact, it is because of the beautiful coloration that these moths are sometimes favourably compared to butterflies. However, these moths are indifferentiable from one another on the outside.

As a result of the present study, there are now ten species of Lista snout moths known from China, with their world fauna amounting to thirteen. Mostly distributed in the south the East-Asian country, the genus likely originates from there.

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Original source:

Wang M, Chen F, Wu C (2017) A review of Lista Walker, 1859 in China, with descriptions of five new species (Lepidoptera, Pyralidae, Epipaschiinae). ZooKeys 642: 97-113. 10.3897/zookeys.642.7157

Family of scaffold web spiders increased with ~20% following discovery of 43 new species

Recent study into spider specimens collected from across China, Indonesia, Philippines, Singapore, Thailand, Vietnam and Madagascar over the past 15 years, revealed the striking number of 43 scaffold web spiders that have stayed hidden from science until now. By describing the new species in a paper published in the open access journal ZooKeys, scientists from Sichuan University and the Chinese Academy of Sciences increase the number of a scaffold web spider family (Nesticidae), known from around the world, with about twenty percents.

The studied family of scaffold web spiders is a relatively small group of arachnids, which can be found at almost any locality, apart from Siberia, Central Asia, Northern and Southern Africa and places at high latitude. Prior to the study of Drs Yucheng Lin, Francesco Ballarin and Shuqiang Li, the species counted 245 in total, 12 of which are extinct and known from fossils only. A curious peculiarity in these spiders is their comb of serrated bristles, located on their rear legs, used to pull silk bands for their webs.

Although large-scale taxonomic surveys of scaffold web spiders have long remained scarce, recently the interest towards spider research in China and Southeast Asia has seen a significant rise. Thus, over the last 15 years, Chinese, American and European arachnologists have carried out several surveys, ending up with precious samples. As a result, Dr Yucheng Lin and his team followed with deeper morphological and molecular studies to discover remarkable diversity.

In their work, the researchers have also established a new genus (Speleoticus) for five previously known, but misplaced species, which spend a lot of their time taking shelter in caves.

The majority of scaffold web spiders occur in temperate areas of the Holarctic realm, where the species tend to be medium-sized, long-legged, and prefer cave-like environments. The species found in the tropical and subtropical areas are, on the other hand, usually smaller, with shorter legs, and can be quite often spotted outside, where they crawl in forest litter, on grass, and under stones.

Original source:

Lin Y, Ballarin F, Li S (2016) A survey of the spider family Nesticidae (Arachnida, Araneae) in Asia and Madagascar, with the description of forty-three new species. ZooKeys 627: 1-168. https://doi.org/10.3897/zookeys.627.8629

Crab from the Chinese pet market turns out to be a new species of a new genus

Shimmering carapaces and rattling claws make colourful freshwater crabs attractive to pet keepers. To answer the demand, fishermen are busy collecting and trading with the crustaceans, often not knowing what exactly they have handed over to their client.

Luckily for science and nature alike, however, such ‘stock’ sometimes ends up in the hands of scientists, who recognise their peculiarities and readily dig into them to make the next amazing discovery. Such is the case of three researchers from University of New South Wales, Australia, The Australian Museum, Sun Yat-sen University, China, and National Chung Hsing University, Taiwan, who have found a new species and even a new genus of freshwater crab, and now have it published in the open access journal ZooKeys.

Knowing about the growing demand for eye-catching freshwater crabs from southern China, the authors took a look at the ornamental fish market to eventually identify an individual with unusually structured male gonopod, which in crustaceans is a swimming appendage modified to serve as a reproductive organ. Having their interest drawn by the peculiar crab, lead author Chao Huang managed to persuade the fish dealer to let them survey the collection site located in northern Guangdong, southern China.

Despite superficial resemblance to an already existing freshwater crab genus, at second glance, the crab turned out to be quite distinct thanks to a unique set of features including the carapace, the gonopod and the relatively long and slender legs. Once the molecular analyses’ results were also in, the authors had enough evidence to assign the freshwater crab as a species and even a genus new to science.

Being a primarily aquatic species, the new crab prefers the pools of limestone hillstreams, therefore its name Yuebeipotamon calciatile, where calciatile means ‘living on limestone’. To adapt to the habitat, the species seems to have developed its characteristic slender legs, which make it easier for the crab to climb and move around whenever the short-lived limestone hillstreams make it search for a new home.

The carapace of the new crab is usually coloured in maroon to dark brown, while the claws and legs are reddish to purplish. Interestingly, the adults are much more vivid compared to the juveniles.

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Original source:

Citation: Huang C, Shih H-T, Mao SY (2016) Yuebeipotamon calciatile, a new genus and new species of freshwater crab from southern China (Crustacea, Decapoda, Brachyura, Potamidae). ZooKeys 615: 61-72. doi: 10.3897/zookeys.615.9964

Old specimens establish a new bamboo worm genus and species

Bamboo worms (family Maldanidae) comprise an easily recognizable family of bristle worms (class Polychaeta). Their common name they receive because of their elongated segments, ending with an appendage, which gives them the joint appearance of slender bamboo-shoots. These often fragile marine inhabitants can be found in mud-walled tubes in shelf sediments.

However, bamboo worms are tough to identify from each other. The problem is that to safely recognize them, a researcher needs both anterior and posterior ends from the same specimen. Nevertheless, now PhD student Wang Yueyun and Dr Li Xinzheng from the Marine Biological Museum, Institute of Oceanology, Chinese Academy of Sciences have discovered two new species and a new genus (Paramaldane). The new bamboo worms are described in the open access journal ZooKeys.

Several specimens of the new genus were found during re-examination of specimens collected from South China Sea between 1959 to 1962. The new genus is characterized by the collar-like glandular band on the sixth chaetiger. This is the first discovery of a collar-like structure in the subfamily of Maldaninae. Moreover, there is only one species in this genus till now.

Another discovery, published in the present study, is the second new species, called Maldane adunca, which belongs to another genus within the family. It is similar to the cosmopolitan species Maldane sarsi, yet the differences are clear. The shape of its nuchal grooves, a kind of sense organ, is much more curved, thus resembling hooks. Therefore, it is called adunca, meaning ‘hooked’ in Latin.

Both new species are only found in mud sediment of offshore waters of Hainan Island.

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Original source:

Wang Y, Li X (2016) A new Maldane species and a new Maldaninae genus and species (Maldanidae, Annelida) from coastal waters of China. ZooKeys 603: 1-16. doi: 10.3897/zookeys.603.9125

New Chinese leaf-roller weevil does not know how to roll leaves

A long-term project on insect-seed interactions, currently being carried out by researchers of the Institute of Zoology (Chinese Academy of Sciences) in a subtropical forest near Dujiangyan City, Sichuan, China, revealed the presence of larvae of an unknown weevil species eating the seeds in the pods of a shrubby legume.

Scientists from the Institute of Zoology, China, Xiangyang Lv, Zhishu Xiao, Zhiliang Wang, Runzhi Zhang, and Miguel A. Alonso-Zarazaga, also affiliated with the Museo Nacional de Ciencias Naturales (CSIC), Spain, published the description of the new genus and species, named Evemphyron sinense, and added data on its biology in the open access journal ZooKeys.

Because of its peculiar features, it was difficult to locate the closest relatives of this new species. However, a few characteristic traits of the body and genitalia, strongly pointed to its placement within the tribe Deporaini.

The closest, although seemingly rather far-related to the new species, beetles are considered to be a genus with scattered distribution, stretching from the Russian Far East to the Indian Himalaya.

However, they are smaller weevils whose females cut shoots to lay their eggs. On the other hand, the males in both genera share a peculiar patch of hairs, probably related to pheromone dispersal. Likewise, each species is associated with legumes.

The curious feature of this weevil group (Deporaini) is that the vast majority of its species are leaf-rollers. The females cut a hardwood leaf in a peculiar and mathematical way and roll it, laying one egg inside each one. This behaviour, which is known in other far-related weevils of the same family, seems to have appeared independently in different evolutionary branches. In the case of Deporaini, this behavioural trait evolved after the new genus became a distinct one.

As a result, the new genus is considered to be one of the two most primitive within the tribe. In fact, it might be the most primitive one, taking into account a number of morphological traits as well.

It could be that the new beetle never knew how to roll a leaf to make nests and shelter its offspring.

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Original source:

Lv X, Alonso-Zarazaga MA, Xiao Z, Wang Z, Zhang R (2016) Evemphyron sinense, a new genus and species infesting legume seedpods in China (Coleoptera, Attelabidae, Rhynchitinae).ZooKeys 600: 89-101. doi: 10.3897/zookeys.600.6709

Black wattle’s new biogeographic distribution threatens flight safety in China

Black wattle, flowering trees also known as the Australian acacia, have been observed to rapidly spread around local airports in Yunnan province, southwestern China. According to the ecologists, this alien species and its extraordinary pace of invasion are to lead to new threats for both flight safety and local biodiversity. The five Chinese scientists, led by Min Liu, PhD student at Yunnan University, have their findings and suggestions for immediate measures published in the open-access journal Neobiota.

The phenomenon was investigated by the ecologists and botanists, affiliated with Yunnan University and Kunming University of Science and Technology, at Kunming’s Changshui International Airport.

The black wattle is listed as being among the ”Top 100 of the world’s worst invasive alien species” by the World Conservation Union (IUCN). Native to Australia, the species has been settled across the globe for more than 150 years owing to its multiple uses. However, its distribution and expansion are generally overlooked in China.

It is an evergreen fast growing flowering tree species, which is strongly dependent on sunlight and contributes to nitrogen fixation. This means that due to bacteria in its root system, the tree produces nitrogen compounds that help the plant grow and compete with other plants. Once dead, it would release these compounds to fertilise the soil.

During their investigation, the scientists observed a total seedling spread of 1800 m in 2013, with its peak growth taking place between June and November. Other population features such as number, density, height and ground diameter, also showed that the species had a very high invasion rate.

The authors conclude that black wattle has a strong potential to change the local vegetation structure and increase the risk of bird strikes. It is of urgent need that the situation is further assessed and the potential invasion threat at other airports around China and other parts of the world – evaluated.

“I have never found such a rapid expansion like the one of the black wattle trees at this airport in my career,” said the Head of Bird Strike Prevention Office of Changshui Airport. “These trees grow very fast and provide good shelters for local birds, which eventually increases the probability of bird strikes at our airport. So, they must be controlled.”

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Original source:

Liu M, Yang M, Song D, Zhang Z, Ou X (2016) Invasive Acacia mearnsii De Wilde in Kunming, Yunnan Province, China: a new biogeographic distribution that Threatens Airport Safety.NeoBiota 29: 53-62. doi: 10.3897/neobiota.29.7230

Tiny, record-breaking Chinese land snails fit almost 10 times into the eye of a needle

Minuscule snails defy current knowledge and scientific terminology about terrestrial “microsnails”. While examining soil samples collected from the base of limestone rocks in Guangxi Province, Southern China, scientists Barna Páll-Gergely and Takahiro Asami from Shinshu University, Adrienne Jochum, University and Natural History Museum of Bern, and András Hunyadi, found several minute empty light grey shells, which measured an astounding height of less than 1 mm.

The single known shell of Angustopila dominikae, named after the wife of the first author, was measured a mere 0.86 mm in shell height. Thus, it is considered to be perhaps the World’s smallest land snail species when focusing on the largest diameter of the shell. With very few reported instances of species demonstrating this degree of tininess, the team have described a total of seven new land snail species in their paper, published in the open access journal ZooKeys.

Another of the herein described new species, called Angustopila subelevata, measured 0.83-0.91 mm (mean = 0.87 mm) in height.

Two of the authors have previously described other species of tiny land snails from China and Korea in the same journal.

In their present paper, Dr. Pall-Gergely and his team also discuss the challenges faced by scientists surveying small molluscs, since finding living specimens is still very difficult. Thus, the evolutionary relationships between these species, as well as the number of existing species are yet little known.

“Extremes in body size of organisms not only attract attention from the public, but also incite interest regarding their adaptation to their environment,” remind the researchers. “Investigating tiny-shelled land snails is important for assessing biodiversity and natural history as well as for establishing the foundation for studying the evolution of dwarfism in invertebrate animals.”

“We hope that these results provide the taxonomic groundwork for future studies concerning the evolution of dwarfism in invertebrates,” they finished up.

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Original source:

Páll-Gergely B, Hunyadi A, Jochum A, Asami T (2015) Seven new hypselostomatid species from China, including some of the world’s smallest land snails (Gastropoda, Pulmonata, Orthurethra). ZooKeys 523: 31-62. doi: 10.3897/zookeys.523.6114