A new species of the Colocasiomyia gigantea species group (Diptera, Drosophilidae) breeding on inflorescences of Scindapsus maclurei (Araceae).

The gigantea group is one of the six species groups of the genus Colocasiomyia Meijere, 1914 (Diptera, Drosophilidae). All the nine known species of this group breed on inflorescence/infructescence of host plants of the subfamily Monsteroideae (Araceae) and are geographically restricted to the Oriental region: seven species found exclusively from Rhaphidophora spp. in southern China, and the remaining two from Sabah (host plant: Scindapsus coriaceus) in Borneo or from West Java (host plant: Epipremnum pinnatum). In the present paper, a new member of the gigantea group, C. daiae sp. nov., is described, with adult specimens and eggs collected from inflorescences of Scindapsus maclurei in Hainan, China and larvae and pupae reared from field-collected eggs in the laboratory.

Advances on polyphenism in insects.

Polyphenism denotes that one genome produces two or more distinct phenotypes due to environmental inductions. Many cases have been reported in insects, for example, metamorphosis, seasonal polyphenism, the caste of eusocial insects and so on. Polyphenism is one of the most important reasons for insects to survive and thrive, because insects can adapt and use the environmental cues around them in order to avoid predators and reproduce by changing their phenotypes. Polyphenism has received growing attentions, ranging from the earlier description of this phenomenon to the exploration of possible inducing factors. With the recent advent of the genomic era, more and more studies based on next generation sequencing, gene knockout and RNA interference have been reported to reveal the molecular mechanism of polyphenism. In this review, we summarize the progresses of the polyphenism in insects and envision prospects of future researches.