Several species of the genus Cryptolestes Ganglbauer, 1899 (Coleoptera: Laemophloeidae) are commonly found in stored products. In this study, five species of Cryptolestes, with almost worldwide distribution, were obtained from laboratories in China, Czech Republic and the USA: Cryptolestes ferrugineus (Stephens, 1831), Cryptolestes pusillus (Schönherr, 1817), Cryptolestes turcicus (Grouvelle, 1876), Cryptolestes pusilloides (Steel & Howe, 1952) and Cryptolestes capensis (Waltl, 1834). Molecular identification based on a 658 bp fragment from the mitochondrial DNA cytochrome c oxidase subunit I (COI) was adopted to overcome some problems of morphological identification of Cryptolestes species. The utility of COI sequences as DNA barcodes in discriminating the five Cryptolestes species was evaluated on adults and larvae by analysing Kimura 2-parameter distances, phylogenetic tree and haplotype networks. The results showed that molecular approaches based on DNA barcodes were able to accurately identify these species. This is the first study using DNA barcoding to identify Cryptolestes species and the gathered DNA sequences will complement the biological barcode database.

Academy of State Administration of Grain No 11 Baiwanzhuang Street Beijing China

Department of Entomology and Plant Pathology Oklahoma State University Stillwater OK USA

Department of Entomology College of Agriculture and Biotechnology China Agricultural University No 2 Yuanmingyuan West Road Beijing China

Department of Pest Control of Stored Products and Food Safety Crop Research Institute Drnovská 507 Prague Czech Republic

Department of Zoology Faculty of Science Charles University Prague Viničná 7 Prague Czech Republic

Institute of Animal and Plant Quarantine Chinese Academy of Inspection and Quarantine Beijing China

Bull Entomol Res. 2014 Oct;104(5):679 PubMed

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DNA barcoding, species-specific PCR and real-time PCR techniques for the identification of six Tribolium pests of stored products