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Issue: Vol. 5448 No. 1: 9 May 2024
Type: Article
Published: 2024-05-09
DOI: 10.11646/zootaxa.5448.1.10
Page range: 143-150
Abstract views: 82
PDF downloaded: 6

A new, apparently lotic species of Relictorygmus from the Northern Cape Kamiesberg, South Africa (Coleoptera, Hydrophilidae, Cylominae)

School of Biological and Marine Sciences; University of Plymouth; Drake Circus; Plymouth PL4 8AA; UK; Department of Zoology; University of Johannesburg; PO Box 524; Auckland Park; Johannesburg 2006; South Africa
Department of Freshwater Invertebrates; Albany Museum; and Department of Zoology and Entomology; Rhodes University; Grahamstown 6140; South Africa
Coleoptera Aquatic Coleoptera Hydrophilidae Cylominae new species South Africa

Abstract

Relictorygmus Seidel, Minoshima, Arriaga-Varela & Fikáček, 2018, the only known African genus of the hydrophilid subfamily Cylominae, currently includes two lentic species from the far southwestern Cape of South Africa. Here Relictorygmus riparius sp. nov. is described, based on specimens collected from wet moss beside a small mountain stream in the Kamiesberg, Northern Cape Province, South Africa, almost 500 km from previously known taxa and the first lotic member of the genus. The new species is compared with the two previously described Relictorygmus, R. trevornoahi Seidel, Minoshima, Arriaga-Varela & Fikáček, 2018 and R. repentinus (Hebauer, 2002) and notes are provided on its ecology at the type locality. This unexpected find suggests that other cylomines may remain undetected in southern Africa, particularly since they can easily be mistaken for species of the morphologically similar, but distantly related, Coelostoma Brullé, 1835.

 

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