COURTESY JAMES LIEBHERR
Entomologist James Liebherr has identified 74 new beetle species of Mecyclothorax at Haleakala on Maui. Shown are female and male specimens of M. Arturi
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Even in an environment well known for its expansive biodiversity, the recent discovery of 74 new beetle species on Haleakala volcano was a stunner.
In a new taxonomic revision recently published in the open-access journal ZooKeys, Cornell University professor James Liebherr identified some 116 species of round-waisted predatory beetles — 74 never before documented — living within the limits of the
volcano.
The evolution of so many species of Mecyclothorax over the 1.2-million-year lifespan of Haleakala is an unusually high rate.
Overall, there are 239 species of the beetles in Hawaii — all of which descended from a single common species.
The new species of beetles were previously undetected in part because many live in very limited areas of the volcano and because there had not previously been so comprehensive a field sampling as conducted by Liebherr.
“Haleakala volcano is a large pie with different sets of beetle species living in the different slices,” Liebherr said in a statement released Friday. “Actually,
the different pie slices are just like the original Hawaiian land divisions called
ahupuaa, showing that the Hawaiian people had a keen sense of how their island home was organized.”
Liebherr found that round-waisted beetle species thrive across a wide range of elevations, but land conversion and the influx of invasive alien plants have disrupted habitats lower than 1,000 meters.
