Three new species of fireflies were found in Yunnan

Source: Science and Technology Daily

Fireflies are the most famous terrestrial luminescent creatures. The reporter learned from the Kunming Institute of Zoology of the Chinese Academy of Sciences on the 6th that researchers at the Institute recently found 3 new species of fireflies and 4 new recorded species in China in Yunnan, China.

Fireflies are widespread throughout the world, divided into 9 subfamilies and about 100 genera, some of which are distributed only in limited geographical areas.

Among them, the genus Oblate is a type of fireflies distributed only in the surrounding himal mountains of Asia and Southeast Asian countries, they are male and female type II, male adults can continue to emit weaker green light, female adults can continue to emit stronger green light, in Kunming, Yunnan and other places can often see their figure. However, due to the fact that different species of the same insect have extremely similar external characteristics, different populations in China of this genus are usually recognized as Yunnan flat fluorescent fireflies.

The previous research team of evolutionary genomics and gene origin research group of Kunming Institute of Zoology, Chinese Academy of Sciences showed that Yunnan flat fluorescent genus has a special evolutionary position in species phylogenetics, luminesces and biological fluorescence evolution. In order to find out the species distributed by this special taxon in China, they cooperated with the Hong Kong Entomological Society and the Collaborative Evolution Research Group of the Key Laboratory of Tropical Forest Ecology of Xishuangbanna Tropical Botanical Garden of the Chinese Academy of Sciences to conduct detailed morphological comparison and molecular phylogenetic analysis of the specimens collected by the Kunming Institute of Zoology, especially since 2002. The researchers analyzed the COI data of different populations of Yunnan bianfluorite distributed in Kunming and combined with morphological comparison, and found that there were large genetic differences between different populations of the same species in this genus, which provided a new idea and standard for the identification of species of this genus.

Combined with molecular standards, through molecular phylogeny and morphological analysis of specimens of different populations, and morphological comparison with model specimens, the research team found 3 new species of alpine flat firefly, Lu Persuasion flat firefly and giant thorax flat firefly and 4 new recorded species in China, and made a detailed description and discussion of these species, compiled a search table for Chinese flat firefly species, and also combed and examined the model specimens of 13 species.

As a result, the genus has increased to 20 species worldwide, and the number of species classified in China has increased from the original 4 to 11 species. These studies provide an important reference for future research on the identification of firefly species and other life phenomena, and also show that Yunnan has rich species diversity. The research results were published in the prestigious international journal Animal Taxonomy.