Wong McLeod (creekfiber5)

Body size variation within Megalomys correlates with island bank area and might thus reflect historical rather than modern biogeography. Zygodontomys specimens from the Grenada Bank fall within the upper end of size variation in extant populations and may constitute an example of 'island gigantism', but it is possible that occurrence of this widespread species on the Grenada Bank might reflect prehistoric human-mediated translocation. We predict further endemic Caribbean rice rat taxa remain to be discovered, including a possible species of Megalomys on the neighbouring island of St. Vincent.Species known from China in the praying mantis subfamily Hierodulinae are revised. A new species, Titanodula menglaensis sp. nov. is described. Hierodula tenuidentata Saussure, 1869 and Dracomantis mirofraternus Shcherbakov Vermeersch, 2020 are newly recorded from China. Two new synonyms are proposed Titanodula formosana (Giglio-Tos, 1912) = Titanodula fruhstorferi (Werner, 1916), syn. nov. and Hierodula macrodentata Wang, Zhou Zhang, 2020 = Hierodula latipennis Brunner de Wattenwyl, 1893. Ootheca and male genitalia of the Chinese species are described and photographed. An identification key to genera and species of Hierodulinae from China is also provided. The current Chinese checklist contains 21 species.Protaetia (Macroliocola) dianae Mückstein, a new species of fruit chafer (Coleoptera Scarabaeidae Cetoniinae) from northern Vietnam is described. Habitus and diagnostic features of the new species are illustrated. A new country record of Protaetia (Liocola) miharai (Alexis Delpont, 1998) for Vietnam is presented.Meadia minor sp. nov., a scaless ilyophine eel, is described on the basis of 10 specimens collected from off Quy Nhon, central coast of Vietnam. It can be distinguished from its congeners in having a relatively long trunk (21.3-25.0% TL) which is longer than head length; a short and blunt snout (21.4-23.7% HL); gill opening close to pectoral-fin base; interbranchial space broad (20.7-26.2% HL); dorsal-fin origin above posterior third of pectoral fin; body depth 24-28 times in TL; total vertebrae 118-122; mean vertebral formula 7-33-121; and a small body size, reaching 330 mm TL. The generic status of the new species is discussed. Short descriptions of two congeners are provided.Garra orontesi, new species, is described from the Orontes River drainage in the eastern Mediterranean Sea basin in Turkey and Syria. It is distinguished from its congeners in the Mediterranean Sea basin and adjacent Mesopotamia by possessing 17-21 gill rakers on the lower part of the first gill arch, the pelvic-fin origin usually below the second branched dorsal-fin ray, 8½ branched dorsal-fin rays, usually 2-3 scales between the tip of the pectoral and pelvic-fin origins, and no tubercles behind the upper posterior eye margin. It is also distinguished by a minimum K2P distance of 2.7% in its COI barcode region against G. rufa, and 3.9% against the geographically adjacent G. turcica.Genus Uvarovistia ranged along the Zagros Mountain belt. We presented first genetic data from three species of the genus and a taxonomic rectification indicated by these data. Sequences of three mitochondrial and two nuclear gene segments were obtained from different populations. Phylogenetic and automatic species delimitation analyses consistently suggested three distinct phylogroups as U. zebra, U. satunini and the third a new species, U. munzurensis Uluar Yahyaoğlu sp. n. Time estimation and population genetic analyses supported consistent results. The following conclusions were reached (i) five species in the genus constitute two distinct species groups named as Zebra Group and Satunini Group, (ii) data suggest intra generic relationships as U. zebra + ((U. satunini + U. munzurensis) + (U. bakhtiara +U. iraka)), (iii) molecular clock estimations indicated a deep divergence time and no gene flow between U. satunini and U. munzurensis, (iv) although these two species canno