A new cavernicolous assassin bug from the Canary Islands (Hemiptera: Reduviidae: Emesinae: Collartidini)

The Canary Archipelago is home to two species of obligately cavernicolous assassin bugs of the genus Collartida Villiers, 1949 (Hemiptera: Heteroptera: Reduviidae: Emesinae: Collartidini). These species are highly adapted for cave life, being blind and wingless. In the present study, we describe a new species of the genus, C. phantasma sp. nov. from the Federica mine in Gran Canaria. C. phantasma sp. nov. differs from the other two Collartida species found in the Canary Archipelago in that the male is fully winged, the female is wingless, and both sexes have well-developed eyes. We provide information regarding the new species’ habitat, its taxonomic affinities, and its ability to fly.

We are grateful to Marcos Roca-Cusachs and Marta Goula (University of Barcelona) for providing access to the Ribes collection. We thank Álvaro Monzón for showing us the Federica Mine. We also thank Heriberto López (IPNA-CSIC) for his help during fieldwork and Pedro Oromí (University of La Laguna) for providing information and bibliography regarding troglobiont species of the Canary Archipelago. L.-R. Davranoglou is grateful to the Leverhulme Trust Early Career Fellowship grant (ECF-2021-199) for funding this research. Daniel Suárez was funded by the Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovación through an FPI PhD fellowship (PRE2018-083230). The fieldwork was supported by the project ‘Fauna subterránea del Barranco de los Cernícalos’, funded by the local council of Gran Canaria.