Monday 22 August 2011

Bohumiljania of New Caledonia


Today in Zootaxa a paper was published describing a number of species in the leaf beetle genus Bohumiljania from New Caledonia. Unfortunately, these species aren't going to win many prizes in the beauty stakes—they're all pretty nondescript, generic looking chrysomelids (See the picture of Bohmiljania aoupinie above). However, it belongs to a group (the Spilopyrinae), that displays a classical Gondwanan distribution pattern so it will be of interest to those people who are interested in the biogeography of New Caledonia. These beetles tend to be found in mountainous areas, and all known hostplants are in the Myrtaceae.

Incidentally, this is Zootaxa's 3000th issue. Pretty good going for a journal that celebrated its 10th birthday on 28 May this year.


Reference:
Reid CAM, Beatson M. 2011. Revision of the New Caledonian endemic genus Bohumiljania Monrós (Coleoptera: Chrysomelidae: Spilopyrinae). Zootaxa 3000: 1-43. The full 6 MB article is here

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