On Two Little Known Species of Leaf Beetles (Coleoptera, Chrysomelidae) from the South Urals

• Main Author: Mikhailov, Yu. E.
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: English
• Published: Pleiades Publishing 2018
• Subjects: Pleiades; Tundra
• Online Access: https://elar.usfeu.ru/handle/123456789/9034

120 years ago G.G. Jacobson described two species of leaf beetles from the South Urals that have remained poorly studied until recently. Chrysolina roddi, previously known only from the foothills and low mountains of the South Urals, the low Zhiguli Mountains, and the limestone cliffs on the Don River, is recorded here for the first time from the alpine tundra of the Iremel massif; its host plant in the alpine zone is the small alpine lovage Pachypleurum simplex (= Ligusticum mutellinoides), family Apiaceae. Two species of the subgenus Crositops, Ch. roddi and Ch. kabaki, are presently treated as foothill-alpine disjunct taxa. The distribution of Ch. poretzkyi, described from the low-montane part of Bashkortostan, also shows a foothill-alpine disjunction. Alpine populations of Ch. poretzkyi are described here as a new subspecies Ch. (Arctolina) poretzkyi olschwangi Mikhailov subsp. n. Revision of the type of Ch. poretzkyi that has long been considered lost confirms that this species belongs to the subgenus Arctolina, in disagreement with its previous placement in the subgenus Pleurosticha. Within Arctolina, the identity of Ch. tundralis and its differences from Ch. poretzkyi are discussed. © 2018, Pleiades Publishing, Inc. I am very grateful to R.Yu. Dudko (ISEA, Novosibirsk) and A.I. Ermakov (IPAE, Yekaterinburg) for help with material collection, to the administration of the Iremel Nature Park and Zyuratkul National Park for help with carrying out research, to A.G. Moseiko (ZIN, St. Petersburg) and S.E. Tshernyshev (ISEA, Novosibirsk) for the possibility of studying the type specimens from the corresponding collections and help with photo documentation. This work was financially supported by the Russian Foundation for Basic Research (project 15-05-05549).