New Species of Stactobia McLachlan (Trichoptera: Hydroptilidae) from China

Abstract

Three species in the genus Stactobia are previously known from China, Stactobia salmakis Malicky & Chantaramongkol, 2007, from Zhejiang, S. parva Wells & Dudgeon, 1990, from Hong Kong, and S. semele Malicky & Chantaramongkol, 2007, from Taiwan. Examination of materials collected from Jiangxi and Sichuan Provinces in the southern part of China has revealed 4 new species of Stactobia, bringing the number of Chinese Stactobia species to 7. Newly described species include S. forcipata, new species, S. rhombica, new species, S. leptoclada new species, and S. spicifera, new species. Previously described species S. salmakis and S. semele, along with all the new species belong to the Stactobia martynovi diagnostic species group; S. parva belongs to the Stactobia nielseni diagnostic species group. The diagnostic characters for the new species and for these two species groups are summarized. Genus Stactobia (Trichoptera: Hydroptilidae, Stactobiinae) includes 144 extant species worldwide (Morse, 2013), predominantly distributed in the Oriental Region (OL, 91 spp.) and the West Palearctic Region (WP, 35 spp.), with a few species found in the East Palearctic (EP, 10 spp.) and Afrotropical (AT, 4 spp.) biogeographic regions. In addition, 2 species are distributed in both EP and WP, 1 species is distributed in both OL and WP and 1 species is distributed in both AT and WP. The Chinese fauna presently includes 3 species (Wells and Dudgeon, 1990; Malicky and Chantaramongkol, 2007). From 1990 to 2005, the junior authors organized 5 expeditions in the southeastern, southwestern, northwestern and central parts of China. As a result, 4 new Chinese species of Stactobia are discovered, bringing the total to 7 Chinese species of Stactobia. We did not identify any of the 3 previously known Chinese species of Stactobia in our expeditions, suggesting that many more undescribed species of this genus may occur in China. Four diagnostic species groups were recognized in Stactobia by Schmid (1959); Marshall (1979) further confirmed these species groups and provided some distinguishing morphological characters for each group. Neither author provided explicit synapomorphies or other evidence that the groups are monophyletic. All the Chinese species fall into two diagnostic species groups: The S. martynovi group and the S. nielseni group.