Abstract
Iberoporusplutosp. n., the first stygobiont beetle from Portugal (Dytiscidae, Hydroporinae), is described from a single female from the cave Soprador do Carvalho (Coimbra). The species is highly troglomorphic, depigmented, blind, and with elongated appendages not adapted for swimming. A molecular phylogeny based on a combination of three mitochondrial and two nuclear genes showed the new species to be sister to I.cermenius Castro & Delgado, 2001 from Córdoba (south of Spain), within the subtribe Siettitiina of the tribe Hydroporini. Both species are included in a clade with Siettitiaavenionensis Guignot, 1925 (south of France) and Rhithrodytesagnus Foster, 1992 and R.argaensis Fery & Bilton, 1996 (north of Portugal), in turn sister to the rest of species of genus Rhithrodytes Bameul, 1989, in what is here considered the Siettitia group of genera. We resolve the paraphyly of Rhithrodytes by transferring the two Portuguese species to Iberoporus Castro & Delgado, 2001, I.agnus (Foster, 1992), comb. n. and I.argaensis (Fery & Bilton, 1996), comb. n.
Highlights
IntroductionThe knowledge of the subterranean fauna from Portugal has significantly increased over the last decade, with the description of a high number of obligate subterranean species (tripling their number) and the establishment of new biogeographic patterns (Reboleira 2012)
The knowledge of the subterranean fauna from Portugal has significantly increased over the last decade, with the description of a high number of obligate subterranean species and the establishment of new biogeographic patterns (Reboleira 2012)
In this work we describe the first stygobiont species of Coleoptera from Portugal, a diving beetle of the subtribe Siettitiina (Dytiscidae, Hydroporinae, Hydroporini; type genus: Siettitia Abeille de Perrin, 1904)
Summary
The knowledge of the subterranean fauna from Portugal has significantly increased over the last decade, with the description of a high number of obligate subterranean species (tripling their number) and the establishment of new biogeographic patterns (Reboleira 2012). A high number of these species are stygobiont (i.e., confined to groundwater), mostly from wells in the north of the country, where evapotranspiration is higher (Reboleira et al 2011, 2013). They include 62 species of crustaceans, mostly asellids, syncarids and amphipods, and one species of annelid (Reboleira et al 2013). Siettitiina includes the only known European genera of Dytiscidae which have stygobiont members: Siettitia, with two species in France, Iberoporus Castro & Delgado, 2001, with one species in south Spain, Etruscodytes Mazza et al, 2013, with one Italian species, and Graptodytes Seidlitz, 1887, with the Moroccan G. eremitus Ribera & Faille, 2010 among several epigean members (Ribera and Faille 2010, Nilsson and Hájek 2018a). Despite multiple visits to the same cave no additional specimens have been found, so we describe here the species on the basis of its morphological singularity and of the molecular data that places it unambiguously among the west Mediterranean species of Siettitiina
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