Abstract
A new species with primitive characteristics, Ameletus daliensis Tong, sp. nov., is described, based on the morphology of imago, larva and egg with molecular data of the mitochondrial COI from Mount Cangshan, Dali, China. The new species is closely related to one of the most primitive mayflies, Ameletus primitivus Traver, 1939, by sharing persistent mouthparts in the alate stage, but it can be distinguished from the latter by the morphological differences of the mouthpart remains, wings and genitals in the imaginal stage. Both morphological and molecular evidence support that A. daliensis Tong, sp. nov. is a new member of the genus Ameletus. The discovery of the new species could help understand the origin and evolution of the genus Ameletus.
Highlights
IntroductionAmeletus Eaton, the largest genus of the family Ameletidae, is distributed in the Nearctic, Palearctic and Oriental Regions
Paratypes: 14 larvae and two imagos reared from larvae with same data as holotype; 20 larvae, one female sub-imago and one male imago reared from larvae, Yunnan, Dali City, Mt
The results showed that the interspecific genetic distances between A. daliensis sp. nov. and other sequenced Ameletus species are ranging from 5.5%– 26.3%, of which the lowest K2P distance of 5.5% (Tables 1, 2) was found between the Species Ameletus daliensis sp. nov
Summary
Ameletus Eaton, the largest genus of the family Ameletidae, is distributed in the Nearctic, Palearctic and Oriental Regions. In China, Ameletus species have been paid little attention, with, so far, only five species being recorded: A. costalis (Matsumura) and A. montanus Imanishi are reported from north-eastern China (Quan et al 2002); A. atratus Kang & Yang, A. formosus Kang & Yang and A. montivagus Kang & Yang are described from Taiwan, based on the larval stage (Kang and Yang 1994). An undescribed species was determined, based on larval and imaginal stages associated with laboratory rearing. We describe this new Ameletus species by integrated approaches, including descriptions of imago, larva and egg and DNA sequence analysis (COI, Kimura 2-parameter)
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