Blaberidae (Blattodea) of Madre de Dios, Peru and a key to Epilamprinae s. s.
Significant progress has been made in the cockroach faunistics of some South American countries (i.e., Brazil, Ecuador, Colombia, and the Guiana shield) during the last 25 years while the Peruvian fauna has remained almost entirely understudied. The Peruvian Amazonia is recognized as having one of the most biodiverse and endemic faunas in the world. Yet, this is not reflected in the relatively depauperate species list of cockroaches from Peru. We partially rectify this knowledge gap by providing a thorough report on the Blaberidae of the department of Madre De Dios and an updated checklist of Blaberidae of Peru. To accomplish this, we conducted a partial revision of Epilamprinae sensu stricto, accompanied with a diagnostic key and visual guide that distinguishes all Peruvian genera, and most other genera, based on male sexual morphology. This includes the description of one new species group, five newly described species of Epilampra (E. yompori, E. homage, E. wandpero, E. sofia, E. paititi), and three potential new species not described due to taxonomic uncertainty (E. conferta “placa”, E. conferta “barra”, E. sp. cf. azteca ). Additionally, we described a new species, Lanxoblatta patriciae sp. nov., and the first new species of Phoetalia, P. amigo sp. nov. in 160 years. We also provided new country records of three existing taxa, one of them (Hyporhicnoda humilior Hebard, 1933) for the whole South America. Overall, we provided a checklist to the 30 species of Blaberidae in Madre De Dios, bringing the count for all of Peru up to 39.
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