Cuticular Hydrocarbons as Chemotaxonomic Characters for Two Species of Genus Alphitobius Stephens (Coleoptera: Tenebrionidae: Tenebrioninae), A. diaperinus (Panzer, 1797) and A. laevigatus (Fabricius, 1781) in Egypt

Manal E. A. Elshaier, Galhoum A. M. M., Dalia A. Elshewy, Neven E. Elmetwaly

Abstract: Genus Alphitobius Stephens, 1829 (Alphitobiini Reitter, 1917, subfamily Tenebrioninae Latreille, 1802) is represented in Egypt by two species, A. diaperinus (Panzer) and A. laevigatus (Fabricius, 1781). Species of Alphitobius have been identified based on adult morphological characters. Species identification is often difficult because they are closely similar and are not so easy to be distinguished morphologically. This study constitutes an attempt to apply cuticular hydrocarbons to distinguish the two species in Egypt. The data of GC/MS analysis showed that the two species shared eleven of sixty hydrocarbon compounds, A. diaprinus was characterized by having twenty nine compounds not found in A. laevigatus while A. laevigatus had twenty compounds not represented in A. diaprinus. These results suggest that the application of cuticular hydrocarbons as chemo-taxonomic character can represent a contribution toward developing modern, precise and confirmed research tool in taxonomy.

Keywords: Cuticular hydrocarbons- Alphitobius diaperinus- Alphitobius laevigatus- Coleoptera- Tenebrionidae- GC/MS- Insect taxonomy