close
Skip to main content Skip to main navigation menu Skip to site footer
Responsive image
BERJAYA
Issue: Vol. 5853 No. 3: 22 Jul. 2026
Type: Article
Published: 2026-07-22
DOI: 10.11646/zootaxa.5853.3.6
Page range: 395-405
Abstract views: 33
PDF downloaded: 0

A new high-altitude Agabus species from southwestern China, sibling to A. longissimus Régimbart (Coleoptera: Dytiscidae: Agabinae)

Department of Entomology; National Museum; Cirkusová 1740; CZ-193 00 Praha 9–Horní Počernice; Czech Republic
Department of Entomology; National Museum; Cirkusová 1740; CZ-193 00 Praha 9–Horní Počernice; Czech Republic
Coleoptera Dytiscidae Agabinae Agabus Palearctic Region China taxonomy new species cytochrome oxidase I

Abstract

Agabus (Gaurodytes) reuteri sp. nov. from southern Sichuan and northern Yunnan, China, is described and illustrated. The new species closely resembles Agabus longissimus Régimbart, 1899, a relatively widespread species on the eastern Tibetan Plateau, which is here recorded for the first time from Nepal and Yunnan Province, China. Agabus reuteri sp. nov. differs from A. longissimus by darker elytra, thicker anterior protarsal claw, sharply acute anterior pronotal angles, and median lobe of the aedeagus in lateral view abruptly tapered before the apex. Both species share an incomplete, medially interrupted anterior bead of the clypeus, a condition otherwise known in only one other species of Agabus. Nevertheless, additional morphological characters, together with molecular analysis of the 3ʹ region of the mitochondrial cytochrome oxidase I gene (cox1) in A. reuteri sp. nov., support their placement within the genus Agabus. To reflect the distinctiveness of these two species, we establish a new Agabus longissimus species group for them.

References

  1. Brancucci, M. (1983) Notes sur Agabus longissimus Régimbart (Col. Dytiscidae). Entomologische Arbeiten aus dem Museum G. Frey, 31/32, 169–172.
  2. Brancucci, M. & Hendrich, L. (2006) A new high-altitude Ilybiosoma Crotch, 1873 from Tibet, as an example of a Palaearctic – Afrotropical disjunction (Coleoptera, Dytiscidae). Aquatic Insects, 28, 131–138. https://doi.org/10.1080/01650420600684634
  3. Brancucci, M. & Hendrich, L. (2008) 5100 m above sea level: Agabus joachimschmidti sp. n. and notes on other high altitude diving beetles from Tibet and Bhutan (Coleoptera, Dytiscidae). Zootaxa, 1825 (1), 51–58. https://doi.org/10.11646/zootaxa.1825.1.5
  4. Fery, H. (2011) Agabus (Acatodes) puetzi sp. n., a new species of the confinis-group from the Qinhai-Tibet Plateau (Coleoptera, Dytiscidae, Agabini). Zootaxa, 3050 (1), 37–54. https://doi.org/10.11646/zootaxa.3050.1.2
  5. Guindon, S., Dufayard, J.F., Lefort, V., Anisimova, M., Hordijk, W. & Gascuel, O. (2010) New algorithms and methods to estimate maximum-likelihood phylogenies: assessing the performance of PhyML 3.0. Systematic Biology, 59, 307–321. https://doi.org/10.1093/sysbio/syq010
  6. Kearse, M., Moir, R., Wilson, A., Stones-Havas, S., Cheung, M., Sturrock, S., Buxton, S., Cooper, A., Markowitz, S., Duran, C., Thierer, T., Ashton, B., Mientjes, P. & Drummond, A. (2012) Geneious Basic: an integrated and extendable desktop software platform for the organization and analysis of sequence data. Bioinformatics, 28, 1647–1649. https://doi.org/10.1093/bioinformatics/bts199
  7. Kimura, M. (1980) A simple method for estimating evolutionary rate of base substitutions through comparative studies of nucleotide sequences. Journal of Molecular Evolution, 16, 111–120. https://doi.org/10.1007/BF01731581
  8. Kumar, S., Stecher, G., Li, M., Knyaz, C. & Tamura, K. (2018) MEGA X: Molecular Evolutionary Genetics Analysis across computing platforms. Molecular Biology and Evolution, 35, 1547–1549. https://doi.org/10.1093/molbev/msy096
  9. Lanfear, R., Calcott, B., Ho, S.Y. & Guindon, S. (2012) PartitionFinder: combined selection of partitioning schemes and substitution models for phylogenetic analyses. Molecular Biology and Evolution, 29, 1695–1701. https://doi.org/10.1093/molbev/mss020
  10. Lanfear, R., Frandsen, P.B., Wright, A.M., Senfeld, T. & Calcott, B. (2016) PartitionFinder 2: new methods for selecting partitioned models of evolution for molecular and morphological phylogenetic analyses. Molecular Biology and Evolution, 34, 772–773. https://doi.org/10.1093/molbev/msw260
  11. Larson, D.J. (1989) Revision of North American Agabus Leach (Coleoptera: Dytiscidae): introduction, key to species groups, and classification of the ambiguus-, tristis-, and arcticus-groups. The Canadian Entomologist, 121, 861–919. https://doi.org/10.4039/Ent121861-10
  12. Miller, K.B. & Nilsson, A.N. (2003) Homology and terminology: Communicating information about rotated structures in water beetles. Latissimus, 17, 1–4.
  13. Nilsson, A.N. (2000) A new view of the generic classification of the Agabus-group of genera of the Agabini, aimed at solving the problem with a paraphyletic Agabus (Coleoptera: Dytiscidae). Koleopterologische Rundschau, 70, 17–36.
  14. Nilsson, A.N. & Hájek, J. (2026) A world catalogue of the family Dytiscidae, or the diving beetles (Coleoptera, Adephaga). Version 1.I.2026. Distributed as a PDF file via Internet. Available from: http://www.waterbeetles.eu (accessed 9 March 2026)
  15. Nilsson, A.N. & Holmen, M. (1995) The aquatic Adephaga (Coleoptera) of Fennoscandia and Denmark. II. Dytiscidae. Fauna Entomologica Scandinavica, 32, 1–192. https://doi.org/10.1163/9789004273603
  16. Petrov, P.N., Shapovalov, M.I. & Fery, H. (2010) A new species of Ilybius Erichson, 1832 (Coleoptera: Dytiscidae) from the North Caucasus. Russian Entomological Journal, 19, 41–45.
  17. Rambaut, A., Drummond, A.J., Xie, D., Baele, G. & Suchard, M.A. (2018) Posterior summarisation in Bayesian phylogenetics using Tracer 1.7. Systematic Biology, 67, 901–904. https://doi.org/10.1093/sysbio/syy032
  18. Régimbart, M. (1899) Révision des Dytiscidae de la région Indo-Sino-Malaise. Annales de la Société Entomologique de France, 68, 186–367. https://doi.org/10.1080/21686351.1899.12279737
  19. Ribera, I., Nilsson, A.N. & Vogler, A.P. (2004) Phylogeny and historical biogeography of Agabinae diving beetles (Coleoptera) inferred from mitochondrial DNA sequences. Molecular Phylogenetics and Evolution, 30, 545–562. https://doi.org/10.1016/S1055-7903(03)00224-0
  20. Ronquist, F., Teslenko, M., van der Mark, P., Ayres, D.L., Darling, A., Höhna, S., Larget, B., Lui, L., Suchard, M.A. & Huelsenbeck, J.P. (2012) MRBAYES 3.2: Efficient Bayesian phylogenetic inference and model selection across a large model space. Systematic Biology, 61, 539–542. https://doi.org/10.1093/sysbio/sys029
  21. Šťastný, J. & Hájek, J. (2016) Agabus abaensis sp. nov., a peculiar species of the confinis-group from central China (Coleoptera: Dytiscidae: Agabinae). Zootaxa, 4121 (3), 311–318. https://doi.org/10.11646/zootaxa.4121.3.5
  22. Šťastný, J. & Nilsson, A.N. (2003) Dytiscidae: IX. Agabus suoduogangi sp. n. from northern Yünnan (Coleoptera). In: Jäch, M.A. & Ji, L. (Eds.), Water Beetles of China Vol. 3. Zoologisch-Botanische Gesellschaft in Österreich and Wiener Coleopterologenverein, Wien, pp. 211–215.
  23. Vondráček, D., Fuchsová, A., Ahrens, D., Král, D. & Šípek, P. (2018a) Phylogeography and DNA-based species delimitation provide insight into the taxonomy of the polymorphic rose chafer Protaetia (Potosia) cuprea species complex (Coleoptera: Scarabaeidae: Cetoniinae) in the Western Palearctic. PLoS ONE, 13 (2), 1–26. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0192349
  24. Vondráček, D., Tkoč, M. & Fikáček, M. (2018b) Is repeated cypermethrin fumigation dangerous for the mitochondrial DNA in dry insect samples? Acta Entomologica Musei Nationalis Pragae, 58 (2), 609–614. https://doi.org/10.2478/aemnp-2018-0051
  25. Zaitzev, F.A. [Ph.] (1953) Fauna SSSR, Novaya Seriya No 58. Nasekomye zhestkokrylye. Tom IV. Plavuntsovye i vertyachki. Izdatel’stvo Akademii Nauk SSSR, Moskva–Leningrad, 376 pp. [in Russian]

How to Cite

Hájek, J. & Vondráček, D. (2026) A new high-altitude Agabus species from southwestern China, sibling to A. longissimus Régimbart (Coleoptera: Dytiscidae: Agabinae). Zootaxa, 5853 (3), 395–405. https://doi.org/10.11646/zootaxa.5853.3.6