The first record of rare and little known leaf beetle Chrysolina levi Okhrimenko, 1990 was registered in the Omsk region (West Siberia). Redescription of male is given because holotype was collected dead and damaged, lacking legs, antennae, head and pronotum. Position of Chrysolina levi inside subgenus Chalcoidea is discussed, its distribution area in Scythian steppe region is now considered as Taman’–Irtysh instead of Pontic.

Chrysolina levi, redescription, Omsk region, Siberia

The leaf beetle Chrysolina (Chalcoidea) levi Okhrimenko, 1990 was described from Krasnodar province based on one male and one female only. Moreover, both specimens were collected dead at the base of sagebrush plant. Female lacks legs and antennae almost entirely, male also lacks head and pronotum (Okhrimenko 1990). Thus, the holotype and paratype are both remains of beetles with various damage rate. Therefore the original description of male holotype is very brief, five lines only, but it provides the figure of aedeagus, whereas the original description of female paratype is more detailed. Later, Bieńkowski (2007) collected one more female in Krasnodar province near Kuchugury village, attributed it to this species and made its redescription.

Thus, Ch. levi is the rarest species of Chrysolina described by three specimens only, including the types, and no alive male has been collected so far. Authors of the subsequent keys (Bieńkowski 2007; Warchałowski 2010) had to copy the original, quite sketchy aedeagus drawing from the description of Okhrimenko (1990), while the original drawing based on holotype examination was presented recently by Bieńkowski (2019).

Unexpectedly, Roman and Evgeny Dudko collected one male of this species far away from Krasnodar province in 2015. The new locality in Omsk region is 2800 km eastwards and almost 10 degrees northwards from the type locality. Although a very comprehensive review of the leaf beetle fauna has been completed recently for this region (Moseyko et al. 2018), our record herein proved to be the first not only for Omsk region but also for Siberia.

All measurements were made using an ocular grid mounted on MBS-10 stereomicroscope. Total body length (TL) was measured from the anterior edge of pronotum to the elytral apex, body width was measured in the broadest part of elytra (EW). Redescription is based on the algorithm proposed by Bieńkowski (2011) for species descriptions in the genus Chrysolina.

Abbreviations: NOC (Nikolay Okhrimenko personal collection, Krasnodar, Russia); ZIN (Zoological Institute of Russian Academy of Sciences, St.-Petersburg); YMC (Yuri Mikhailov personal collection, Yekaterinburg, Russia).

Okhrimenko (1992) treated this species as Pontic, endemic to Eisk-Taman’ (or Taman’ steppe) natural district. This was true for the findings limited by Taman’ peninsula. Now it is clear that Ch. levi has wider distribution in West Scythian subregion of Scythian steppe region (according to zoogeographic scheme of Emeljanov 1974). The new record in the extreme south-east of Omsk region is evidenced that this species has Taman’-Irtysh distribution (Fig. 3), considering that the saline lands are also common in the adjacent Novosibirsk region and Kazakhstan, where this species could be found.

Figure 3.

Records of Chrysolina levi and boundaries of Scythian steppe region (following Lavrenko et al. 1991).

Ch. levi was initially placed by Okhrimenko (1990) in the subgenus Chalcoidea Motschulsky, 1860, although this species has somewhat isolated position lacking several peculiar subgeneral characters. These characters are narrow last maxillary palpomere, similar in both sexes, aedeagus usually “bottle shaped” with narrow long or short apical projection, reddish lateral stripe on elytra (Bieńkowski 2019). In addition, Ch. levi has specific structure of aedeagus and pronotum. Aedeagus shape of Ch. levi (Fig. 2) is very peculiar not only among Chalcoidea but in the whole genus Chrysolina. Lateral impressions of pronotum of this species are deep and narrow (Fig. 1A), while in other representatives of Chalcoidea they are usually shallow, basally widened and covered with coarse punctures (Fig. 1B-D).

Okhrimenko (1990) put Ch. levi closer to Ch. hyrcana Weise, 1884 and Ch. turgaica (Jacobson, 1910), thought the latter species has very different aedeagus shape. In Chalcoidea, Ch. levi can be put closer to Ch. songarica Gebler, 1843 (= Ch. hyrcana) or to Ch. immarginata (Rybakow, 1884) and Ch. dieckmanni (Mohr, 1966) due to specific structure of pronotum. These species have narrow lateral ridges of pronotum and relatively narrow lateral impressions, although coarse punctures in these impressions are always separate, not fused like in Ch. levi. Peculiar deep furrow-shaped impressions of pronotum provide means to place Ch. levi closer to the representatives of the subgenus Jeanclaudia Mikhailov, 2009, for example, Ch. ordinata Gebler, 1823.

I am grateful to Dr Roman Dudko (Institute of Systematics and Ecology of Animals, Novosibirsk, Russia) for kindly sharing of collected material, to Dr Kirill Makarov (Moscow Pedagogical State University, Russia), Dr Stephan Blank and Mandy Shröter (Senckenberg Deutsches Entomologisches Institut, Müncheberg, Germany) for high-resolution images.