A new record of Reticulitermes kanmonensis Takematsu, 1999 (Isoptera: Rhinotermitidae) from Korea

In this study, we report the first record of Reticulitermes kanmonensis from Korea verified using soldier morphological characters and haplotypes obtained from two mitochondrial genes. R. kanmonensis Takematsu, 1999 (Isoptera: Rhinotermitidae) was collected from Pinus densiflora Siebold & Zucc. (Pinaceae) stumps in two provinces, Jeollabuk-do and Chungcheongnam-do, Korea. We compared R. kanmonensis with the more common Reticulitermes speratus kyushuensis Morimoto, 1968 using morphological and molecular characters. In the morphological comparison, R. kanmonensis was distinguished from R. speratus kyushuensis by a significantly higher number of hairs on the pronotum and ratio of the posterior postmentum width and length. In the molecular comparison, R. kanmonensis revealed genetic differences of 5.49% (range 5.20%-5.80%) and 8.11% (range 8.00%-8.80%) from R. speratus kyushuensis using the cytochrome oxidase subunit 1(COI) and subunit II (COII) gene sequences, respectively. (C) 2015 Korean Society of Applied Entomology, Taiwan Entomological Society and Malaysian Plant Protection Society. Published by Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.