Rigorous Morphological Studies Confirm That the Classical Object of Pest Control Chilocorus kuwanae Is the Same Species as Ch. renipustulatus (Coleoptera: Coccinellidae).

ABSTRACT: The ladybug Chilocorus kuwanae, which was described in Japan, has been used for biological control of pests for 100 years. Chilocorus kuwanae was recently synonymized with Ch. renipustulatus described in Europe. The synonymy was based on the examination of few specimens. Our aim is to verify this synonymy. We studied all characters previously used to distinguish these taxa: eight metric and nine qualitative characters. Examination of 107 specimens from Japan and Sakhalin and 174 specimens from Europe showed that the ranges of variability in all characters in Asian and European specimens strongly overlap. There are no characters with interspecific hiatuses. Analysis with Amadon's criteria showed that Asian and European specimens also do not represent different subspecies. Conclusions: (1) N

SUBMITTER: Bienkowski AO 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC7349165 | biostudies-literature | 2020 Jun

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature