New species of alderfly genus Sialis (Megaloptera: Sialidae) from China and Vietnam, with a key to species of Sialis from Asia

Abstract

The alderfly genus Sialis is the most species-rich group of the family Sialidae. However, discovery of new Sialis species is becoming difficult because of previous good faunal exploration. In this paper, we describe two new Sialis species from the southern part of East Asia, S. australis and S. jiyuni, based on materials from historical and recent collections. These two species are closely related to the insular species S. kumejimae and are among the early diverged species within Sialis. Presently, 32 species of Sialis are recorded from Asia. A key to all the Sialis species from Asia is provided.

A world checklist of extant and extinct species of Megaloptera (Insecta: Neuropterida)

“…The larvae are characterized by a dorsoventrally flattened body with 7-8 pairs of lateral abdominal filaments, a well-developed head capsule with six stemmata (per side), large chewing mouthparts, and short antennae. Adult megalopterans range from small to very large (7-100 mm forewing length), with an enlarged hind wing anal area and a prognathous head (New & Theischinger 1993;Contreras-Ramos & Harris 1998;Beutel & Friedrich 2008;Liu et al 2015bLiu et al , 2015cArdila-Camacho & Contreras-Ramos 2018a). Because of the impressive size of their larger species, megalopterans have attracted the attention of entomologists since the early days of scientific entomology in the 18 th century.…”