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Organized Meeting

Taiwanese Entomologist Association Meeting

A review on Miltotranes Zimmerman, 1994 (Coleoptera: Curculionidae: Molytinae), the Bowenia-pollinated cycad weevils in Australia, with description of a new species and new insights into Bowenia systematics

On-Demand
On-Demand

    Presenting Author(s)

  • Yun Hsiao

    PhD Student/Mr.
    CSIRO
    Canberra ACT 0200, Australian Capital Territory, Australia

    • Co-Author(s)

  • RO

    Rolf G. Oberprieler

    Australian National Insect Collection, Australia

Cycads (Cycadales: Zamiaceae) are subtropical and tropical palm‐like gymnosperms, which were diverse and widely distributed during the Mesozoic. Although some species are often utilized as landscape plants in gardens and parks and thus are of economic significance, most species are rare and endangered and protected by the IUCN. Bowenia is one of the most localized cycad genera, comprising only two extant species restricted to northern Queensland, Australia. Miltotranes Zimmerman, 1994 is an Australian endemic weevil genus including two host-specific species, M. prosternalis (Lea, 1929) and M. subopacus (Lea, 1929), which have evolved highly specialized interactions of pollination with Bowenia cycads. In the present study, the morphological taxonomy of Miltotranes Zimmerman is reviewed, and one new species associated with Bowenia population from the McIlwraith Range is recognised. Based on the high host specificity of this weevil genus and biogeography of Bowenia, with an isolated population geographically separated from B. spectabilis by the Normanby Gap in the late Miocence, the discovery of a third species of Miltotranes suggests a potential new species of CITES-protected Bowenia cycads, providing new insights into cycad systematics from entomological perspective.