Abstract
The hyperdiverse genus Trigonopterus has its center of diversity in Melanesia, but only a single species is recorded from the Bismarck Archipelago to date. Here we describe four new species from the island of New Britain: Trigonopterus chewbacca sp. n., Trigonopterus obsidianus sp. n., Trigonopterus puncticollis sp. n. and Trigonopterus silaliensis sp. n. We provide cytochrome oxidase subunit I (cox1) sequences of the new species and a key to all five species known from the Bismarck Archipelago.
Highlights
Trigonopterus Fauvel is a genus of flightless weevils of the subfamily Cryptorhynchinae (Alonso-Zarazaga and Lyal 1999)
Trigonopterus being recorded from the remote islands of Fiji (Zimmerman 1938b), Samoa (Marshall 1931) and New Caledonia (Heller 1916), only one species has been described from the Bismarck Archipelago to date, i.e. Trigonopterus pembertoni (Zimmerman 1938a) from New Ireland
The absence of a record of a weevil genus from a Melanesian island is often difficult to interpret, i.e. it is usually unclear whether this is based on a true absence or on a lack of records
Summary
Trigonopterus Fauvel is a genus of flightless weevils of the subfamily Cryptorhynchinae (Alonso-Zarazaga and Lyal 1999). It is distributed in Southeast Asia (Riedel et al 2014), Australia (Riedel and Tänzler 2016) and Melanesia, with its center of diversity in New Guinea (Riedel et al 2010; Tänzler et al 2012, Riedel et al 2013b). We describe four new species from the island of New Britain. There are many additional new species to be found on this island. Large expanses of low-elevation forests in New Britain have been converted to oil-palm plantations, highlighting the significance of documenting the insect fauna before the remaining forests are gone
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