The dung beetle, Copris tripartitus, (Coleoptera: Scarabaeidae), is one of the insect species listed as endangered wildlife in Korea. In order to establish conservation strategy an investigation on nation-wide genetic magnitude and nature of genetic diversity would be required. In this study, we sequenced each partial sequences of mitochondrial COI (658 bp) and CytB (433 bop) genes and complete internal transcribed spacer 2 (ITS2) of the nuclear ribosomal DNA (411~420 bp) from 70 individuals of C. tripartitus collected from five Korean localities. The sequence divergence of mitochondrial genes was unexpectedly substantial as 5.0% (33 bp) for COI and 4.6% (20 bp) for CytB, whereas that of ITS2 was only 1.9% (6 bp), revealing much higher variability in mitochondrial DNA. In phylogenetic analysis, each 57 and 47 haplotypes obtained from COI and CytB gene sequences was subdivided into two groups (groups A and B), but the node supports for each group was not strong enough to consider each group as independent monophyletic groups in both genes. This interpretation was further supported by the same analysis with ITS2, showing no subdivision at all. These findings reinforce importance for the inference of phylogenetic result using both mitochondrial and nuclear encoded sequences. The C. tripartitus occurring in Korean peninsula was genetically well connected to each other and no obvious population genetic structure was detectable.

Chrysochroa fulgidissima is the most beautiful Korean beetle and valuable insect in traditional culture because of ancient fulgidissima's adornments in Korea and Japan. The species is also recognized as very rare in the Korean fauna. However, we recently realized that the Korean population has been applied to Ch. fulgidissima without detailed taxonomic approaches since Japanese colonial rule of Korea. Therefore, we investigated 76 dried specimens belonging to seven populations collected from N. Vietnam, E. China, Taiwan, Japan, and Korea through morphological and molecular taxonomy using DNA barcoding of COI and 16S rRNA. As the result, the Korean population is strongly formed a monophyletic branch divided from other populations by genetic divergence of each 10.2%~11.7% in DNA barcoding and 6.4%~7.9% in 16S rRNA, and as well as fine structure in the male genitalia. It is allowed to us that the Korean population, which has been underestimated at species discrimination in morphology, may be considered as a novel species.