Aphelopus nivealis Mita & Olmi, 2014

Fig. 15

Aphelopus nivealis Mita & Olmi, 2014: 93 .

Aphelopus nivealis – Olmi & Xu 2015: 25.

Material examined

CHINA • 1 ♀; Guangdong, Guangzhou University Town, secondary forest; 23°3′9″ N, 113°23′23″ E; 20 Jan.–17 Feb. 2019; Hua-Yan Chen leg.; MT; SCAU 3040508 (SYSBM) • 1 ♀; Guangdong, Shenzhen, Mt Tanglangshan; 22.570411639° N, 113.99317344° E; LSX498, 7–30 May 2020; Long-Long Chen leg.; MT-GD7; SCAU 3049357 (SYSBM) .

Distribution

Japan (Honshu), China (Guangdong) (new record).

Remarks

Aphelopus nivealis Mita & Olmi, 2014 was originally described from the Eastern Palaearctic region (Honshu, Japan) (see Olmi & Xu 2015). In this species there are no notauli. One of the two specimens above (from Guangdong, 22.570411639° N, 113.99317344° E) matches completely with the description of A. nivealis, including the body colour and the absence of notauli (Fig. 15A–B). On the contrary, the other specimen (from Guangdong, 23°3′9″ N, 113°23′23″ E) is whiter and seems to have shallow traces of notauli reaching about 0.5 × length of mesoscutum (Fig. 15C–D). The genetic distance between the two specimens is only 0.6%, suggesting that the variations are just intraspecific. These records indicate that A. nivealis is present both in the Eastern Palaearctic and the Oriental regions.