Center for Systematic Entomology, Gainesville, Florida
Document Type
Article
Date of this Version
10-27-2017
Citation
Sergey Moskalenko, 2017. A new subspecies of Eupatorus gracillicornis Arrow, 1908 from Southern Vietnam (Coleoptera, Scarabaeidae, Dynastinae), Insecta Mundi 0580: 1–10.
Abstract
A new subspecies, Eupatorus gracillicornis prandii ssp. nov. (Coleoptera, Scarabaeidae, Dynastinae), from Southern Vietnam, is described and illustrated.
Eupatorus gracillicornis was described by G. J. Arrow (1908), the holotype was collected in Dong Van in North Vietnam (Dechambre 1975). This species is also distributed in India (Assam), Myanmar, Thailand, Laos, China, Cambodia and Malaysia. Until recently, only one aberration and three subspecies had been described, in addition to the nominative subspecies. The aberration is E. gracillicornis ab. cinctus Endrödi (Endrödi 1985). The subspecies E. gracillicornis edai Hirasawa was described from the Dawna range, near the central border of Myanmar and Thailand (Hirasawa 1991), E. gracillicornis kimioi Hirasawa was described from the Kanchanaburi Province in southwest Thailand (Hirasawa 1992), and E. gracillicornis davidgohi Yamaya was described from Fraser’s Hill in western Malaysia (Yamaya 2013). The description of E. g. davidgohi was based on a single pair of specimens, but I have since seen photos of another male and female with the same characteristics from Genting Highlands (Fig. 16, 60, 73, 77). This subspecies looks valid and must be a very isolated and possibly endangered population. I have been fortunate enough to review a large number of specimens from Southern Vietnam. After my comparisons with nominative specimens from other parts of Asia and also with all known subspecies, the Vietnamese specimens at fi rst appeared similar to E. g. gracillicornis and E. g. davidgohi. However, with closer analysis, I noticed some unique characteristics that set these specimens apart from other subspecies. After detailed examination I have decided to describe a fi fth subspecies.
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Copyright held by the author. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons, Attribution Non-Commercial License. Published in 2017 by Center for Systematic Entomology, Inc. P. O. Box 141874 Gainesville, FL 32614-1874 USA http://centerforsystematicentomology.org/