A new species of alpine Apenetretus Kurnakov from Taiwan: Evidences from DNA barcodes and morphological characteristics (Coleoptera, Carabidae, Patrobini)

Abstract

There are three isolated mountain ranges in Taiwan including Hsueshan Range, Central Mountain Range, and Yushan Range. The rise of these mountains has resulted in the isolation of some species and caused allopatric distribution resulting in divergence and speciation events of high mountain carabids, especially the flightless carabids such as Epaphiopsis, Apenetretus, and partial Nebria. Genus Apenetretus Kurnakov (1960) is typically distributed in high mountain areas of Taiwan. Three of the currently known Apenetretus species have been described from different mountain ranges. These species include A. yushanensis Habu, A. nanhutanus Habu, and A. smetanai Zamotajlov and Sciaky. In this study, a new species is described from Hsueshan, a mountain separated from the ranges of the previous known species, Apenetretus hsueshanensis sp. n. A key to the Taiwanese Apenetretus is included. A reconstructed phylogeny of the Taiwanese Apenetretus is introduced with the use of mitochondrial cytochrome c oxidase subunit I (COI) gene. Molecular data and geographical distribution of Apenetretus support the morphological characteristics observed among those mountain-isolated species and confirms the new species as being distinctly different. Moreover, lineage calibration suggests that the southern A. yushanensis is the most distant one compared to the other three northern Apenetretus at ca. 1.81 million years ago (mya), while the divergence time of A. hsueshanensis to its sister group was dated to 0.94 mya.