The tribe Bythinini Raffray is species-rich pselaphine group including over 600 species distributed worldwide. Despite its diversity, only one genus, Bryaxis Kugelann, has been reported in Korea. In this study, we newly describe Bryaxis sp. n. mainly based on the male antennal modification. We also report a new species of the genus Tychobythinus Ganglbauer from Korea. Members of these two bythinine genera are commonly characterized by the traits of maxillary palpi: elongated second palpomere, shortened penultimate, and enlarged last one. In addition, we conducted phylogenetic analyses to demonstrate the relevance between antennal modification and evolutionary relationship of Bryaxis. To perform the phylogenetic construction, we assembled three mitochondrial genes (cox1, cox2, and 16S) and three nuclear genes (18S, 28S, and wingless) into a dataset. Eleven species of Bryaxis and two Tychobythinus species are included, the latter genus of which are used to root the consensus trees.

Calonecrinae represent a unique but small subfamily of Nitidulidae that is endemic to South Asia. Their habitats, the South Asian lowland forests, are under the imminent threat of degradation, posing a risk of rapid extinction for these species in their specific locales. Despite the looming threat to their existence, our understanding of this enigmatic group remains limited. We conducted an examination of museum and newly collected specimens, alongside a review of the literature, leading to the discovery of a new species, Calonecrus mindanaoensis, from Mindanao, Philippines. For the first time, the morphology of all immature stages of the Calonecrinae was described, with detailed photographs including SEM images. Additionally, their natural history was uncovered for the first time, revealing that all life stages are uniquely adapted to spending their entire life cycle within sticky resin. We re-evaluated the phylogenetic placement of the Calonecrinae by constructing a phylogenetic tree based on the mitochondrial genome. Calonecrinae are positioned within the Epuraeinae clade and show significant affinity with the genus Trimenus. Consequently, this study proposes reclassifying Calonecrinae as Calonecrini stat nov, an extremely modified tribe within the Epuraeinae.

The genus Rosalia contains three subgenera of which distinctly divided by different body colors and distributional patterns. Eurybatodes is a monotypic subgenus with yellow tegument only found in Yunnan, China. Eurybatus is the most specious subgenus contains 21 species with reddish body color, widely distributed in Oriental region including Taiwan and Ryukyu islands. The blue subgenus Rosalia contains 5 species that distributes West Palaearctic, East Palaeartic, Japan, Oriental and West Nearctic, respectively. Here we present the ongoing research on multi-gene phylogeny and evolutionary studies of the genus Rosalia. This study provides new insight into the internal relationships and the evolutionary history of various traits (e.g. biogeography, colors, elytral patterns) of the genus Rosalia.

The genus Placosternum Amyot & Serville (Heteroptera: Pentatomidae) currently belongs to the tribe Pentatomini Leach with 13 described species. Species are medium to big size and are defined by having characteristic thoracic sternal structures and the pronotal lateral angles somewhat protruded and/or serrate. The genus follows a typical Indo-Malayan distribution limited by the Wallace line south-eastwards and extending to some regions of the eastern Palaearctic. The species in the genus can be considered somehow cryptic as morphologically they are similar and most of them have been classified as a single species. Additionally, as most of the species descriptions are extremely poor, after the revision of the type materials and material deposited in many of the worldwide institutions, we present the systematic knowledge on the genus.

Coccidae is one of the major families of scale insects, with many species considered to be serious agricultural or horticultural pests. However, the phylogenetic relationships among coccid subfamilies, tribes and genera are poorly understood because the previous hypotheses are based only on morphological characters and cladistic analysis. Here, we present the first molecular phylogeny of the family based on DNA fragments of a mitochondrial gene (COI), nuclear ribosomal RNA genes (18S and 28S), and elongation factor-1α (EF-1α). We recover a monophyletic family Coccidae with strong support. However, some genera (Coccus and Pulvinaria), tribes (Coccini, Paralecaniini, Pulvinariini and Saissetiini) and subfamilies (Coccinae and Filippiinae) within the family found to be paraphyletic- or polyphyletic. Moreover, particular types of wax formation, which have been used as important taxonomic characters in Coccidae, were found in several unrelated taxa.

The confused taxonomy of the east Palaearctic pear psyllids, serious pests on cultivated pear, is reviewed. Fifty-sixnominal species have been reported from Pyrus, 25 of which we consider valid and ten as not being associated withPyrus. Our taxonomic revision suggests that, in Korea, four Cacopsylla species develop on pear. Three species occuralso in Japan. New synonyms are suggested and seasonal dimorphism are critically discussed.Key words : Psyllidae, Cacopsylla, taxonomy, host plant, Pyrus, Rosaceae, Manchrian pear, Asian pear, European pear, China,Japan, South Korea, Russian Far East

Psyllids have shifted lately into general awareness as vectors of pathogens causing serious plant diseases, as pests in agriculture and forestry or as potential control agents of alien invasive weeds. These small insects are plant sap feeders which are generally very host specific. In addition, related psyllid species tend to develop on related plant species. This makes them an ideal group for studies on insect–plant cospeciation. A sound taxonomic and phylogenetic base is a prerequisite for successful pest control and meaningful research on insect–plant interactions. Currently almost 4000 named species of Psylloidea exist worldwide of which half was described in the last three decades. Despite this tremendous progress there are at least another 4000 species which remain undescribed particularly in Africa, South America and tropical Asia. Since White and Hodkinson’s seminal paper in 1985 a series of studies tested their classification with additional taxa using morphological and molecular techniques. In 2012 Burckhardt and Ouvrard proposed a new classification. Five of their families (Calophyidae, Carsidaridae, Homotomidae, Phacopteronidae and Triozidae) are identical with or similar to those of White and Hodkinson but three differ fundamentally from previous classifications (Aphalaridae, Liviidae and Psyllidae). Many of the recognised families and subfamilies are restricted more or less exclusively to a single plant taxon, e.g. Calophyidae, Phacopteronidae and Rhinocolinae to Sapindales, Carsidaridae to Malvaceae, Homotomidae to Moraceae, Spondyliaspidinae to Myrtaceae, and many Psyllidae to Fabaceae. The 1000 described species of Triozidae, in contrast, have colonised many families of dicots and, a few, even monocots and conifers. Several analyses suggest that cospeciation may be less important than geographical vicariance to explain the observed species richness in psyllids, and that shifts to new host taxa are frequent.

Cordyceps sensu lato is known as one of the largest genera in hypocrealean fungi and largest group of entomopathogenic fungi in Ascomycota. Approximately 400 species are members of Cordyceps s. l. and most of them are obligate symbionts of 10 orders of arthropods and false truffles specifically parasitizing Elaphomyces spp. Recently, Cordyceps s. l. was reclassified into Cordyceps sensu stricto, Elaphocordyceps, MetaCordyceps, and OphioCordyceps in three families (i.e., Clavicipitaceae, Cordycipitaceae, Ophiocordycipitaceae) with the evidence of recent multigene phylogenetic analyses coupled with morphological and ecological characters. With the closely related animal, plant and fungal associated genera (e.g., Balansia, Claviceps, Hypocrella and Torrubiella) of Cordyceps s. l., Cordyceps s. l. and its related genera in Hypocreales have been considered as one of the model systems in understanding the evolution of host affiliation in Kingdom Fungi. Here the overview of molecular systematic of Cordyceps was presented with its evolutionary hypotheses of host affiliation based on the ancestral state reconstruction from 162-taxon data set. In our results, the evolution of its host affiliation is largely characterized by frequent interkingdom host-jumps and ergot and grass endophytes (e.g., Balansia, Claviceps, Epichloe and Neotyphodium) are hypothesized to be derived from an ancestor that parasitized arthropods. Around 350 taxa have been included in the molecular phylogeny of Cordyceps s. l. after the new classification was proposed. Therefore, the progress and problems in current molecular phylogeny are also presented with introduction of the future research direction in molecular systematics and genomics of Cordyceps and its related genera.

During the survey of plant parasitic nematode of Citrus orchard in Korea, Paratrichodorus minor (Colbran, 1956) Siddiqi is founded from the soil of Citrus unshiu Markovich for the first time in Korea. The body length of females is 428.34~506.22 ㎛ long: a = 12.08~22.79, b = 4.02~5.02, V(%) = 38.46~60.68. The excretory pore is located near the base of esophagus. Additionally, the morphological characteristics on P. porosus (Allen, 1957) Siddiqi, 1974 recorded in 1976 on Korea is redescribed in detail.

The genus Myrmecina of Korean fauna is reviewed. Two species of the Myrmecina have been recorded from Korea, Myrmecina nipponica Wheeler and Myrmecina flava Terayama. They are fully described here with its morphological characteristics and SEM photomicrographs. Detailed characteristics of the genus, a key to the Korean species, and worker images of each species are provided.

A total of 22 species belonging to nine genera of the tribes Phenacoccini, Rhizoecini, and Sphaerococcini (Sternorrhyncha: Pseudococcidae) are noted in Korea, with descriptions and illustrations for full grown female. Among them, three species, Heliococcus puerariae sp. nov., Heliococcus zoysiae sp. nov., and Phenacoccus rubicola sp. nov., are new to science, and four species, Coccura comari (Kilnow, 1880), Heliococcus kuriensis Danzig, 1971, Puto erigeroneus (Kanda, 1959), and Puto orientalis Danzig, 1978, are reported for the first time from the Korean Peninsula, and a species is newly known from South Korea. Eleven species, which previously recorded in Korea, have not been found from South Korea during this study.

Three species of the genus Tisis are newly described from Sarawak, Malaysia: T. amabilis sp. nov., T. sabahensis sp. nov., and yasudai sp. nov.. T. luteella (Snellen) is reported for the first time from Sarawak. Taxonomical notes on some little known species are given, with illustrations of their adult images. Illustrations of the genitalia of the new species and the newly reported species from Sarawak are provided.