Tomicus armandii Li & Zhang (Curculionidae, Scolytinae), a new pine shoot borer from China

We describe a new species of forest bark beetle, Tomicus armandii Li & Zhang, collected from Pinus armandii in Yunnan, China. We used the D2 fragment of 28S rDNA to improve the taxonomy of Tomicus. The new species can easily be distinguished from the other Tomicus species using the following two morphological characters: punctures of interstria 2 on declivity appearing evenly biseriate or triseriate; erect interstrial setae on the declivity short, about 0.5x as long as distance between striae. The genetic distances of 28S rDNA measured between T. armandii and other species of Tomicus are similar to the distances between other Tomicus species, and these are much higher than intraspecific distances. The phylogenetic analysis of 28S rDNA agrees with the groupings obtained from morphological identification. DNA analysis has commonly been used in Tomicus taxonomy and is helpful for resolving taxon identification problems.