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Issue: Vol. 5468 No. 2: 12 Jun. 2024
Type: Article
Published: 2024-06-12
DOI: 10.11646/zootaxa.5468.2.6
Page range: 350-360
Abstract views: 301
PDF downloaded: 7

A new species of the small water strider genus Microvelia (Hemiptera: Heteroptera: Veliidae) from the Ryukyus, Japan, with notes on the distribution of M. kyushuensis

Laboratory of Entomology; Faculty of Agriculture; Tokyo University of Agriculture; Atsugi; Kanagawa; Japan
Laboratory of Entomology; Faculty of Agriculture; Tokyo University of Agriculture; Atsugi; Kanagawa; Japan
Hemiptera aquatic insects Gerromorpha Microveliinae taxonomy Yaeyama Islands

Abstract

A new species of the small water strider genus Microvelia Westwood, 1834, M. minsa sp. nov. (Hemiptera: Heteroptera: Veliidae), is described from the Yaeyama Islands of the Ryukyus, Japan. It belongs to the subgenus Pacificovelia Andersen & Weir, 2003. This new species has long been confused with M. kyushuensis Esaki & Miyamoto, 1955, in Japan, but is distinguished from the latter by a larger and more slender body approximately 2.5 times as long as its maximum width, a pair of square gray to grayish-blue markings on abdominal mediotergites II, III, and V, and the male right paramere evenly curved with the apical half twisted.

 

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