Albert Allen false firefly beetle (Namibdrilus albertalleni) from Namibia with unique morphology of Drilini

NEWS - Albert Allen false firefly beetle (Namibdrilus albertalleni) from Namibia brings the Drilini to 16 genera as this unique taxon provides new insights into the diversity and evolution of this enigmatic and intriguing lineage of paedomorphic beetles.

Drilini are soft-bodied predatory beetles with females undergoing incomplete metamorphosis. About 150 described species are distributed across the Afrotropical, Palearctic and Oriental regions with the highest diversity known from sub-Saharan Africa.

The type species in this study is the only representative of Drilini with unidentified mandibles and no hooks on the dorsal part of the median aedeagal lobe, two of the few characters used for identification. Morphology belongs to the Drilus clade which previously contained only taxa from the Palearctic Region.

The Namibian specimen and the generic name Namibdrilus are derived from the Republic of Namibia, plus Drilus, the genus name within the Elateridae. The name albertalleni is from Albert Allen who allowed Robin Kundrata and Gabriela Packova from Palacky University in Olomouc to study the unique specimen.

Based on the results of molecular phylogeny and morphological characters, Drilini is divided into clades A, W, S, M and D. Clades A, W, S and M contain Afrotropical taxa singly or predominantly with some species of clade S extending into the Oriental Region, while clade D contains exclusively Palearctic species.

The researchers suspect that Namibdrilus from southern Africa belongs to one of the African clades, but morphologically it belongs to the clade containing the Palearctic species. All known African Drilini differ from Namibdrilus by having a short frontoclipal region and a median aedeagal lobe with a dorsal hook.

One of the most striking characters of Namibdrilus is that the frontoclipal is very forward and is even visible from the ventral view of the head. Drilini have frontoclipal regions of variable shape, but none of them resemble the frontoclipal region of Namibdrilus which is oriented straight forward and somewhat truncated apically and broadly rounded.

Original research

Kundrata R, Packova G (2024). Discovery of a new soft-bodied click-beetle genus from Namibia with a unique morphology leads to a modified diagnosis of Drilini (Coleoptera, Elateridae). ZooKeys 1213: 183-197, DOI:10.3897/zookeys.1213.131283

Dlium theDlium

Laniger bat tick (Ixodes lanigeri), new hard tick species (Ixodidae) from mouse-eared bats (Myotis) in Vietnam

NEWS - Researchers have identified Ixodes ticks from Vietnam based on morphological and molecular characteristics of females, nymphs and larvae as a new species, laniger bat tick ( Ixodes lanigeri ), which like other members of the Ixodes ariadnae complex appears to show a preference for vesper bats as a typical host. Historically, for more than a century and a half, only one species has been called the “long-legged bat tick”: Ixodes vespertilionis Koch. However, over the past decade, it has been molecularly recognized that long-legged ixodid ticks associated with bats may represent at least six species. Host associations and geographic separation may explain the evolutionary divergence of the new species from its closest living relative Murina hilgendorfi Peters in East Asia, Japan, as no Myotis or Murina spp. have overlapping distributions between Vietnam and the Japanese mainland. On the other hand, assuming that I. lanigeri may be present in other myotine bats and knowing that s...

Four new species and four newly recorded species of Omphale Haliday 1833 (Eulophidae) from China

NEWS - Researchers describe Omphale longigena , Omphale longitarsus , Omphale rectisulcus and Omphale xanthosoma as new species to science and four of their relatives ( O. brevibuccata Szelényi, O. connectens Graham, O. melina Yefremova & Kriskovich and O. obscura Förster) are reported from China for the first time; and a male O. melina is reported for the first time in the world. Omphale Haliday 1833 (Hymenoptera, Eulophidae, Entedoninae) includes 271 species worldwide, a cosmopolitan distribution and the second largest genus in Entedoninae. To date, 203 species from the Americas and Europe are divided into 18 groups. Prior to this study, only 11 species were known from China: O. longiventris (Ling, 1994), O. pulchra (Ling, 1994), O. gibsoni Hansson 2004, O. longiseta Hansson 1996, O. masneri Hansson 1996, O. mellea Hansson 1996, O. salicis (Haliday, 1833), O. stelteri (Boucek, 1971), O. straminea Hansson, 1996, O. sulciscuta (Thomson, 1878) and O. theana (Walker...

Giant golden spider (Nephila pilipes)

Kemlanding or giant golden orbweaver ( Nephila pilipes ) is an animal species in the Araneidae, a web spider with a vertical and asymmetrical mesh, sexually dimorphic with elongated females up to 20 cm in size and has a large investment in egg production and web construction, whereas males only a few millimeters. N. pilipes displays female gigantism and male dwarfism. Females usually have a body size of 30-50 mm, the cephalothorax is 15 mm long and 10 mm wide. The stomach is 30 mm long, 15 mm wide and is mostly tawny with yellow stripes. The female has black or brown, covered in thick hairs. The two rows of eyes stick out towards the back. Plastron is mostly black and brown. The legs are very long, stick-shaped with several joints, black and yellow, lacking of hairs. Males are 5-6.5 mm in size, cephalothorax is 2.5 mm long and 2 mm wide. The stomach is 4 mm long and 1.5 mm wide. The front eye is bigger than the back eye. The legs are light brown with some hair. Yellow carapace with ...

Dlium