Blaps sp.

Nabozhenko, Maxim V., Chigray, Ivan A., Ntatsopoulos, Konstantinos & Papadopoulou, Anna, 2022, A key to Russian and Eastern European species of Blaps Fabricius, 1775 (Coleoptera: Tenebrionidae: Blaptinae) with the description of a new species from the North Caucasus supported by morphological and molecular data, Zootaxa 5116 (2), pp. 267-291 : 288

Blaps sp. aff. oblonga Kraatz, 1883

( Fig. 17B )

Tschernyshev & Mordkovitsh (2002) listed this name for a specimen found in Novosibirsk (South Siberia, Russia). They noted that the specimen was collected in railway warehouses, representing a highly probable invasion. We examined this specimen ( Fig. 17A ) and B. oblonga from the type locality (Osh, Kyrgyzstan) ( Fig. 17B ) and found that Blaps from Novosibirsk distinctly differs from the Tian-Shanian B. oblonga by the structure of the pronotum, elytra and male genitalia. In addition, after analyzing the available revisions and the collections of ZIN RAS and HNHM, the largest on Central Asian Blaptini , we did not find any correspondence of the Novosibirsk specimen to any of the known species. That said, we consider the description of a new taxon based on one invasive specimen to be a bad practice. Thus, we use the name Blaps sp. aff. oblonga for this specimen until further clarification of the situation.

Figures

FIGURE 17. B. oblonga, males, habitus.A = Blaps sp. aff. oblonga (Novosibirsk, South Siberia, Russia); B = B. oblonga from the type locality (Osh, Kyrgyzstan)