An international team of entomologists led by scientists from Taiwan has identified a new species of stink bug in southern Taiwan’s Kenting National Park.
The only other place the bug, named Amblycara innocens Tsai and Redei after two of its discoverers, has been found is Palawan Island in the Philippines.
The findings were published by Taiwan researcher Tsai Jing-fu from Hokkaido University in Japan and Hungarian Dávid Rédei at mainland China’s Nankai University, in the entomological journal of the National Museum in Prague, Czech Republic.
According to Tsai and Rédei, the finding for such zoogeographically disjunct dispersal between Taiwan and Palawan provides a new interpretation that the new species disperse within the same landmass Sunda Shelf during Pleistocene glacial cycles, either through a northern route from the current China (from Palawan to Taiwan), or by a southern route through Borneo (disperse from Taiwan to Palawan).
“Based on studying specimens of this genus from different geographic areas, we can obtain clues about how Taiwan interacted with surrounding islands in the past,” Tsai said. “This is solid taxonomic work that sheds light on East Asian biogeography.”
Prior to the team’s work, the Oriental and Austro-Pacific stink bug genus Amblycara Bergroth was considered to contain only one species—A. gladiatorial—whose range stretches from India to Indonesia, Papua New Guinea, New Caledonia and Fiji.
Additional research showed that specimens in fact belong to two separate species. The new bug is 17-21 millimeters long, and within Taiwan is found only in limited areas of the park.
Two specimens of the new species will be preserved at the National Museum of Natural Science in Taichung and the entomology collection of Taiwan Forestry Research Institute.
Other members of the research team, whose work was sponsored by the national park, include Lee How-jing of National Taiwan University, Lan Yen-chiu of University of Kang Ning in Tainan and Li Hou-feng of National Chung Hsing University. (SSC-SDH)
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