New or little-known Lesticus Dejean, 1828 (Coleoptera: Carabidae: Pterostichini) from Vietnam Íîâûå è ìàëîèçâåñòíûå Lesticus Dejean, 1828 (Coleoptera: Carabidae: Pterostichini) èç Âüåòíàìà

The genus Lesticus Dejean, 1828 (Coleoptera: Carabidae: Pterostichini) is Oriental in distribution and rich in species. These are rather frequent in many tropical habitats, mostly forests, and often flight to lights at night. The adults are mostly large-sized, with the forebody dorsum bright metallic, and thence easily recognizable in nature as well as in collections. The genus was extensively revised within the group ‘Trigonotomi’ [Roux et al., 2016], with over 110 species recognized, about half of this diversity being described for the last three decades [Dubault et al., 2011, 2012, 2013; Kirschenhofer, 1997, 2003, 2005, 2007; Lassalle, Roux, 2015; Lassalle, Schnell, 2019; Roux, Shi, 2011; Zhu et al., 2018]. Some of these species and many others described long before were based on single or very few type specimens originated from one to very few close localities and they were very similar in appearance so that their distinctive features only included nuances of body colour, combined with some other details of external morphology or not. On the other hand, very little or no attention was paid in the descriptions on considerable differences of sexes in shape, sculpture and microsculpture of the elytra. These differences include the elytra distinctly shorter and duller, with intervals flattened before apices and microsculpture coarser, in females than in males, which often results in sexual differences exceeding interspecific ones. ABSTRACT. Nine species of the genus Lesticus Dejean, 1828 from Vietnam are reviewed, including new four described: L. bellus sp.n., L. verticillatus sp.n., L. attenuatus sp.n., and L. laevis sp.n. New synonymy is established: L. p. praestans (Chaudoir, 1868), stat.n. = L. nigerrimus Straneo, 1953, syn.n., = L. tonkinensis Jedlička, 1962, syn.n. Lesticus mouhotii (Chaudoir, 1868) = L. fortis Tschitschérine, 1897, syn.n., is downgraded to a subspecies of L. praestans. Lesticus buqueti (Laporte de Castelnau, 1834) = L. chalcothorax (Chaudoir, 1868), syn.n. = L. stephanschoedli Kirschenhofer, 2005, syn.n. = L. salvazai Dubault et al., 2012, syn.n. = L. kangeanensis Dubault et al., 2012, syn.n., is recognized to be a widespread and much described species. Lesticus lakhonus Tschitschérine, 1900, stat.rest., is resurrected from synonymy of L. chalcothorax. Keys to species and three species groups, the auricollis-, the chalcothorax-, and the insignisgroup, are provided.