Pterostichus (Nialoe) asahinus Habu & Baba, 1960

Fig. 2

Pterostichus (Paralianoe) macrogenys asahinus: Habu and Baba (1960): 62 (original description), holotype ♀: "Mt. Dorokujin, Mts. Asahi, Niigata Pref." [Miomote, Mt. Dôrokujinpô, Murakami-shi, Niigata Prefecture, Japan]; Habu and Baba (1972): 19.

Pterostichus (Paralianoe) asahinus: Habu (1977): 14 (part).

Pterostichus macrogenys: Tanaka (1985): 114 (part?).

Pterostichus (Nialoe) asahinus: Bousquet (2017): 724.

Pterostichus (Nialoe) falcispinus: Sasakawa (2005): 75 (original description), holotype ♂: "Cave Ishikiri, Nakajo-Machi, N-Echigo" [Ishikiri Cave, Mt. Ishikiriyama, Haguro, Tainai-shi, Niigata Prefecture, Japan]; Bousquet (2017): 724; Sasakawa et al. (2020): 7. Syn. nov.

Specimen examined.

1♂, Miomote, alt. 276 m, on the right bank of Miomotegawa River, Murakami-shi, Niigata Prefecture, Japan (38.273211°N, 139.779922°E), 12.vi.-17.vii.2021, Hirotarô Itô leg., in the collection of HI.

Notes.

Sasakawa et al. (2020) suggested that P. asahinus and P. falcispinus might be conspecific. However, this hypothesis remained untested because males from the type locality of P. asahinus have not been examined. The male specimen examined here was obtained from a valley southwest of Mt. Dôrokujinpô, which can virtually be regarded as the type locality (Fig. 1). The structures of the endophallus and right paramere of this specimen are identical to those of the eastern type of P. falcispinus in Sasakawa et al. (2020). Its body length is intermediate between that of the eastern and western types of P. falcispinus as follows: body length from mandible apices to elytral end (BLm) 16.32 mm, that from anterior margin of labrum (BLl) 14.72 mm, and that from clypeal apex (BLc) 14.26 mm. Based on these results, we regard P. asahinus and P. falcispinus as conspecific. The results of the discriminant analysis support this conclusion. The P. asahinus holotype was classified in this newly defined P. asahinus in the discriminant function analysis, and was within the area of P. asahinus on the scatterplot of the first two canonical variates (Fig. 3).