Morphometric Analysis of Sexual Dimorphism in Penthicodes farinosus (Weber, 1801) (Hemiptera: Fulgoridae) from Sarawak

The Penthicodes farinosus are strikingly coloured insects and can be found in India, Myanmar, Peninsular Malaysia, Java, Sumatra, Sulawesi, the Philippines, and Borneo. Despite their wide distributional range in Asia with a common occurrence in Borneo, morphometric investigation of P. farinosus is still lacking. The study is aimed to investigate the morphological variations of this species between two different sexes in Sarawak, Malaysian Borneo. Eleven morphometric characters were measured from 183 specimens (69 males and 114 females). The data were analysed using an independent t-test, Principal Component Analysis (PCA) and Discriminant Function Analysis (DFA). Sexual dimorphism index (SDI) was found ranging from 0.044 (LV) to 0.1008 (BTg) indicating females were larger than males. In PCA, cumulative variations of 59.9% were recorded from two principal components, showing higher loadings in the length of tegmen (LTg) and total length (TL). DFA revealed a single function that explains a canonical correlation of 0.895 with 100% variation. The Wilks’ Lambda values of 0.199 were highly supported with p<0.0001. The highest loadings for the model are LTg and TL. The two variables were further tested using Leave-One-Out Cross Validation (LOOVC) method which resulted in 97.2% cases being correctly classified as male or female. This suggests LTg and TL can be useful in separating both sexes of P. farinosus

Insects

Cosmodela aurulenta (Coleoptera: Carabidae), or commonly known as the golden-spotted tiger beetle, is a species commonly found in open areas or in lowlands near riverbanks. The species is 14 to 16 mm in length, the body is dark greenish with three distinctive spots on each sides of the elytra. There is also the presence of pale coloured hairs on the abdomen and legs. The species are known to be opportunistic predators of smaller invertebrates, with characteristic large mandibles and enlarged compound eyes. The species is also observed to show brief flights

Diversity, Trophic Community Structures and Light Trapping Efficacy of Beetles in Western Sarawak, Borneo, Malaysia

One of the significant representations of the world’s biodiversity is the beetle, representing about 40% of all known insects and these insect group can be found in all non-marine natural habitats. Currently, there are about 106 beetles’ families recorded from Borneo mainly from Sabah, but this number are not inclusive to all the families known to occur in Borneo and the values of beetle family numbers known to occur in Sarawak are uncertain, although included. In addition, the knowledge of trophic guild of beetles in Sarawak is also lacking. The current study attempted to examine efficacy of artificial light sources for light trapping methods used in monitoring beetle biodiversity because the knowledge is still limited especially in Sarawak. Firstly, the species diversity and abundance of beetle assemblages were investigated in western Sarawak, namely Gunung Gading National Park (GGNP), Real Living Lab, UNIMAS (RLL), Kampung Serpan Laut, Asajaya (MKSL) and Adis Buan Resort, Bau (HABR) by using modified Pennsylvanian light trap (MPLT), pitfall trapping (PFT) and hand-picking method (HPM). From an overall assemblage of beetles, a total of 1,198 specimens were successfully collected, representing 184 species from 32 different families. GGNP was represented with the most diverse species (H’= 3.449), followed by MKSL (H’= 3.163), HABR (H’= 3.032) and RLL (2.919) being the least diverse. The family Scarabaeidae represented as the most diverse and abundant family across all study sites, followed by family Chrysomelidae and Carabidae. Besides that, most beetles in Western Sarawak were herbivorous (N= 681, 59.06%), followed by predacious beetles (N=163, 14.14%), saprophagous beetles (N= 146, 12.66%), xylophagous beetles (N=111, 9.63%) and fungivorous beetles (N= 52, 4.51%) as the least common guild. The ecological interactions of beetle families in western Sarawak suggested that, in order to persist and coexist, more than half (59.06%) beetles adopted herbivory use of resources. Lastly, beetles were sampled vusing selected artificial light sources, namely mercury vapour lamp (MVL), blacklight ultraviolet tubes (UVL) and compact fluorescent lamp (CFL) by which all three light sources were tested for efficacy assessments in the same forest of Adis Buan Resort, Bau. From the efficacy assessment, UVL as the artificial light source used in MPLT for beetle biodiversity monitoring and its benefit by aspect of energy saving, greater localised illumination and a higher capture rate, suggested that this light source a good candidate for this cause. In conclusion, since this study are only limited to Western Sarawak and the overall study of beetles in Sarawak is still in insipient stages, more intensive and continuous prolonged studies are needed especially in other parts of Sarawak to enhance further understanding of the beetle biodiversity in this hotspot area

Species Composition and Ecological Distribution of the Subfamily Cicindelinae Latreille, 1801 (Coleoptera: Carabidae) Based on Voucher Specimens in Sarawak

The subfamily Cicindelinae which belongs to the family Carabidaeare commonly known as tiger beetles. Despite the recent studies conducted on this taxon, current ecological knowledge on tiger beetles is limited. Thus, this study aimed to provide a current checklist of tiger beetles as well as their species distribution, abundances and habitat preferences in Sarawak based on voucher specimens from Universiti Malaysia Sarawak Insect Reference Collection (UIRC). A total of 76 specimens of tiger beetles were examined in which comprising of seven genera from eight species. The genus Neocollyriswasrepresented with two species, namely Neocollyris (s. str.) ermaginataandNeocollyris (Stenocollyris)sarawakensis macrodera,while the other genera were represented by only one species,respectively. The most abundant species with64 individuals (84.21%)were represented by Cosmodela aurulenta, followed by Abroscelis tenuipes araneipesand Therates labiatus with three individuals (3.95%) and N.ermaginatawith two individuals (2.63%). In this study, there were eight ecological habitats being identified, namely heath forest, limestone forest, littoral forest, mixed dipterocarp forest, oil palm plantation, peat swamp forest, riverine forest and urban area. The data indicates that C.aurulenta being recorded at seven ecological habitats suggesting this species to have a wide distribution capability while species such as A.tenuipes araneipes, Callytron doriai,Cicindela sp., Myriochila (s. str.) specularis brevipennis, N.ermaginataandN.s.macroderasuggesting these species to have a very narrow habitat specialisation. The results of this preliminary study provide evidence on the need to conduct further studies on the ecological aspects of tiger beetles in Sarawak