A new darkling beetle: Blaptogonia zhentanga

Darkling beetles are usually colored blackish, dark brown or grey, and often have a satiny sheen and few are metallic. This large beetle family also contains the better known flour beetles. These animals feed on both fresh and decaying vegetation, which unfortunately includes vegetable produce which is why several are known as commercially important pests of flour and other cereal products.

The new species was named after the type locality, Zhêntang in Tibet.

For the experts: A new species of the genus Blaptogonia Medvedev, 1998, B. zhentanga sp. n., is described from the southern Himalayas of China. Two fragments of mitochondrial protein-coding genes (COI, Cytb), one fragment of mitochondrial ribosomal RNA gene (16S), and one fragment of nuclear rRNA gene (28SD2) of the new species were obtained. A key to the known species of the genus is presented.