New Species of Spider Water Beetle Discovered on Philippine Island of Mindoro

Posted on August 6, 2013

A tiny new species of Spider Water Beetles has been discovered on the Philippine Island of Mindoro by researchers from Ateneo de Manila University. The new species is named Ancyronyx buhid. The above image above shows the larva and adult of the newly discovered Buhid Spider Water Beetle. The assignment of the immature larvae with the adult beetles was done by DNA tests. The beetle was also photographed under a scanning electron microscope.

There are now 20 species of Spider Water Beetles known on Earth. 11 of them are endemic to the Philippines and cannot be found anywhere else, indicating that the country is the diversity centre of this genus. The new species was reported here in the journal Zookeys.

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