Lepturalia nigripes rufipennis (Blessig, 1873)

Karpinski, Lech, Szczepanski, Wojciech T., lewa, Radoslaw, Walczak, Marcin, Hilszczanski, Jacek, Kruszelnicki, Lech, Los, Krzysztof, Jaworski, Tomasz, Marek Bidas, & Tarwacki, Grzegorz, 2018, New data on the distribution, biology and ecology of the longhorn beetles from the area of South and East Kazakhstan (Coleoptera, Cerambycidae), ZooKeys 805, pp. 59-126 : 65-66

Lepturalia nigripes rufipennis (Blessig, 1873) Fig. 1I, J

Material examined.

East Kazakhstan Region: 25 km W of Tarbagatay [ Тарбагатай] (47°50'N, 81°49'E), 878 m a.s.l., 16 VI 2017, 1♂, leg. MW; Putintsevo [ Путинцево] env. (49°52'N, 84°21'E), 472 m a.s.l., 19-23 VI 2017, 2♂♂, leg. LK; 3♂♂, 1♀, leg. MW; 1♀, leg. MB; Bykovo [ Быково] env. (49°39'N, 84°33'E), 570 m a.s.l., 24 VI 2017, 5♂♂, 1♀, leg. WTS; 2♂♂, 2♀♀, leg. LK; 2♂♂, 3♀♀, leg. MB; 2♂♂, 1♀, leg. MW.

Remarks.

This is a temperate Palaearctic species that is distributed from northeastern Europe to the Far East ( Švácha and Danilevsky 1989, Sama 2002). The taxon was discussed in a previous paper concerning the longhorn beetles of Mongolia ( Karpiński et al. 2018).

Although the nominotypical subspecies - Lepturalia nigripes nigripes (DeGeer, 1873) is distributed in the western part of the range, both taxa can be found in Kazakhstan. A transitional zone between these two forms is situated in the Ural Mountains. According to Danilevskaya et al. (2009), both subspecies occur together in the eastern part of European Russia and in West Siberia, e.g. in the Orenburg region where several populations are known to consist of two different colour forms. However, although specimens with red elytra can be found sporadically in Western Europe, no yellow forms are known from East Siberia or further eastwards.

Our own observations indicate that this taxon is moderately frequent in the mountain and foothill zone in northeastern Kazakhstan, particularly in more afforested areas. About twenty specimens were collected on the flowers of various plants (e.g. Apiaceae , Rosa sp.) in habitats such as riverine bushes with Caragana shrubs, a mixed forest in the foothills of the West Altai Mountains and at the edge of a mountain deciduous grove that consisted mainly of Populus , Betula and Salix (Fig. 15C). Birches occurred in all of these sites.