New records of Chrysochroinae Laporte de Castelnau, 1835 (Coleoptera, Buprestidae) from China

Abstract Background Chrysochroinae Laporte de Castelnau, 1835 is the very colourful subfamily of Buprestidae. There are 127 species and subspecies of the subfamily which have been recorded in China. New information In this paper, we reported three genera, two subgenera and five species of the subfamily Chrysochroinae Laporte de Castelnau, 1835 (Coleoptera, Buprestidae) which are all newly recorded from China. These reported taxa belong to two tribes and four genera: Chrysochroa (Chroodema) corbetti (Kerremans, 1893), Chrysochroa (Pyranthe) fulgens ephippigera White, 1843, Demochroa (Demoxantha) gratiosa indica Csiki, 1900, Xanthocatabonvouloirii (Deyrolle, 1861) (all the above four being Chrysochroini) and Cardiaspismouhotii E. Saunders, 1866 (Dicercini). The five newly-recorded species are briefly described, illustrated and supplemented with relevant biological information.


Introduction
Chrysochroinae Laporte de Castelnau, 1835 is the very colourful subfamily of Buprestidae, with many large ornamental species living in tropical rainforests.Before this study, 127 species and subspecies of the subfamily have been recorded in China, belonging to five tribes and 17 genera (Bellamy 2008a, Bellamy 2008b, Kubáň 2016, Ong and Hattori 2019, Frank and Sekerka 2020, Peng et al. 2021, Frank 2022, Peng and Song 2022, Qi et al. 2022, Hołyński 2023, Ong et al. 2023).

Materials and methods
Habitus photographs were taken using a Canon 5D mark IV digital camera with a Canon EF 100 mm USM macrolens.A Canon MT-26EX twin flash was used as the light source.Fig. 1A was taken using a Canon 5D mark IV digital camera with a Canon EF 70-200 mm f/ 2.8L IS III USM lens.Photographs of smaller characters were photographed using a Keyence VHX-5000 digital microscope with a Keyence VH-Z20R zoom lens (20-200×).The photograph in Fig. 4 was taken using a Canon EOS 50D by Lu Qiu, while that in Fig. 7 was taken using an iPhone 14 smartphone by Yi-Wei Wang.The images were processed and combined into figures using Adobe Photoshop CC 2019.All photographs were taken by the authors, except those with captions.

Description:
Male (Fig. 2): Body (n = 4) length: 33.3-36.8mm, width: 12.1-13.5mm, length/width ratio: 2.60-2.94.Body polychromatic; head, pronotum and base of elytra densely punctate.Head bicoloured, frons and both sides of posterior margin metallic purple, other areas metallic blue; antenna black with 11 antennomeres, antennomeres V-XI expanded.Pronotum tricoloured, metallic purple-red at sides, with a broad metallic green or blue stripe at median, more than half of pronotum; narrow in front and broader behind, widest at basal third.Scutellum absent.Elytra four-coloured, bearing two large blue to black bands at the front half and behind half of each elytron, their borders reaching the suture and the lateral margins, with metallic yellow-orange bands and metallic-greenish suffusion at base and apex and a broad creamy-yellow band at middle; lateral margins of elytra smooth, non-serrated, with one small spine at the apex of each elytron, widest at nearly half of elytra.All tibiae and femora metallic blue to purple-red; outer margin at apex of protibia with nearly triangular protrusion.Abdominal sternum and ventrites metallic blue to purple, ventrite V triangularly excavated at tip.The characters of the male genitalia are shown in Fig. 2.
Female: not examined.Notes: All individuals found in China with tibiae and femora metallic purple-red.

Description:
Male (Fig. 3): Body (n = 1) length: 37.4 mm, width: 13.0 mm, length/width ratio: 2.88.Body polychromatic and shiny; head, pronotum and elytra densely punctate.Head tricoloured, metallic green or blue, tinted with coppery-red at middle of frons.Pronotum five-coloured, metallic purple-red at sides with a broad longitudinal dark blue stripe at median, with transition areas of metallic blue, green and orange between the two colours; narrow in front and broader behind, widest at base.Scutellum absent.Elytra five-coloured, the basal and apical parts tinted with two large metallic purple-red spots on each elytron, with a narrow metallic orange ring around each spot on the periphery, followed by a wide metallic light blue ring around; a broad creamy-yellow patch across the middle, with two narrow dark blue bands in front and behind the creamy-yellow patch; lateral margins of elytra smooth, non-serrated, with one small spine at apex of each elytron, widest at nearly half of elytra.All tibiae and femora metallic purple-red; outer margin at apex of protibia with nearly triangular protrusion.Abdominal sternum and ventrites metallic yellow-orange to purple, with dense setae, ventrite V triangularly excavated at tip.
Female (Fig. 3): Body (n = 3) length: 39.4-41.6 mm, width: 13.2-14.0mm, length/width ratio: 2.85-3.08.The female specimen differs from the male in the colour spots.Setae on the ventral side of body more sparse.Ventrite V without triangular excavation at tip.Other morphological descriptions refer to male specimens.

Notes:
The purple part is replaced by light green in most specimens of the species.
Since the first individual found in China was incomplete, we provisionally classified it as the subspecies indica based on the subspecies distribution map of Hołyński ( 2009).

Description:
Sex unknown (Fig. 4): Body trichromatic and shiny.Pronotum transverse, bicoloured, dark green with two purple longitudinal stripes on lateral margins; anterior margin nearly straight; lateral margins concave at half of the base; posterior margin bisinuate.Scutellum not distinct.Elytra tricoloured, dark green with two large, transverse, white stripes behind the middle, terminal areas purple; widest behind half of the elytra, each elytron with four convex costae; apical half of lateral margins serrated, apices of elytra nearly truncate with one spine at apex of each elytron.All tibiae metallic green.

Notes:
The living individual is shown in Fig. 5.

Description:
Male (Fig. 6): Body (n = 1) length: 51.1-51.5 mm, width: 18.2-19.1 mm, length/width ratio: 2.67-2.83.Body trichromatic and moderately shiny; head, pronotum and elytra densely punctate.Head tricoloured, metallic green to violet, frons with an obviously longitudinal depression along the middle.Pronotum transverse, subtrapezoidal; bicoloured, metallic orange-red with two dark purple longitudinal stripes on both sides of middle line; lateral margins protruding strongly at half of the base, widest behind the middle.Scutellum absent.Elytra bicoloured, dark violet to black with two large, transverse, white stripes behind the middle; widest at nearly half of elytra, each elytron with eight convex costae; lateral margins of elytra smooth, non-serrated, apices of elytra nearly truncate with two small spines at apex of each elytron.All tibiae and femora metallic green to dark purple; outer margin at apex of protibia with nearly triangular protrusion, inner margin at apex densely setose.Ventrites yellow, nonmetallic lustre, each ventrite with two large black spots at both sides of the base, ventrite V triangularly excavated at tip.The characters of the male genitalia are shown in Fig. 6.

Cardiaspis mouhotii E. Saunders, 1866
Nomenclature:  Notes: The body surface of the living adult with a yellow wax layer formed by powdery substance (Fig. 7).
Anterior margin of ventrite V protrusion at middle.
Male: not examined.

Discussion
Due to a lack of understanding of their habits, most species of Chrysochroinae from China are often difficult to collect in the wild.It is considered that, especially in south China, there may be more potential species waiting to be discovered.It is hoped that more biological information, such as host plants, distribution and occurrence of the species can be recorded in future studies to provide reference for us to understand the habits of these species.

Figure 7 .
Figure 7.A living individual of Cardiaspis mouhotii E. Saunders, 1866 from Mengla, Yunnan Province; the photo taken by Yi-Wei Wang in Xishuangbanna Tropical Botanical Garden of Chinese Academy of Sciences on 13 August 2023.
Saunders, 1866: 307.Saunders 1866 Key Laboratory of State Forestry and Grassland Administration on Timber Forest Breeding and Cultivation for Mountainous Areas in Southern China, the Fujian Key Laboratory of Forest Cultivation and Forest Products Processing and Utilization and the Fujian Science and Technology Museum, the Museum of Forest Pests of Fujian Academy of Forestry.