The first arrival of the Chinese sand roach Polyphaga cf. plancyi (Blattodea: Corydiidae) in Europe

Travaux du Muséum National d’Histoire Naturelle “Grigore Antipa” 65 (2): 163–172 (2022) doi: 10.3897/travaux.65.e97208 RESEARCH ARTICLE The first arrival of the Chinese sand roach Polyphaga cf. plancyi (Blattodea: Corydiidae) in Europe Mihailo Vujić1, Nikola Vesović2 1 HabiProt, Cankareva 9/13, 21000 Novi Sad, Serbia 2 Institute of Zoology, University of Belgrade – Faculty of Biology, Studentski Trg 16, 11000 Belgrade, Serbia Corresponding author: Mihailo Vujić () Received 5 November 2022 | Accepted 15 December 2022 | Published 31 December 2022 Citation: Vujić M, Vesović N (2022) The first arrival of the Chinese sand roach Polyphaga cf. plancyi (Blattodea: Corydiidae) in Europe. Travaux du Muséum National d’Histoire Naturelle “Grigore Antipa” 65(2): 163–172. https:// doi.org/10.3897/travaux.63.e97208 Abstract Polyphaga plancyi Bolívar, 1883, also known as Chinese sand roach, it is a large Corydiidae species with a native distribution that includes several Chinese provinces and southern part of the Russian Far East. It is a well-known insect in traditional Chinese medicine, and the biological activity of the compounds isolated from it are actively studied. So far, there are no records of this species outside its natural range, at least outside China. In this article, we present the first record of P. cf. plancyi specimen collected in Europe, probably imported from Shanghai. The specimen was recognized as a non-native cockroach species to Europe via photo posted on social media, and it was subsequently taxonomically identified. Details of its possible origin, its morphology, importance of citizen science, as well as annotations on the other synanthropic cockroaches in Serbia are provided. Keywords alien species, allochthonous species, China, citizen science, cockroach. Introduction The order Blattodea includes insects known as cockroaches and termites, with 7,570 extant known species, of which 4,641 are cockroaches, while 2,929 are termites (Beccaloni and Eggleton 2013; Krishna et al. 2013). A few cockroaches are important pests, they colonize human settlements and enter houses and buildings, and their Copyright Vujić & Vesović. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY 4.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. 164 Vujić & Vesović populations are often very large (Cochran 2009). Some species of cockroaches are also of great medical importance, as they can be vectors of pathogenic bacteria, transmit viruses, protozoa, fungi, helminth eggs, and serve as intermediate hosts of some pathogenic helminths (Cochran 1999). Among Blattodea, the family Corydiidae Saussure, 1864 (formerly known as Polyphagidae), includes cockroaches with a unique combination of morphological features, such as the presence of inflated clypeus transversally divided into anteclypeus and postclypeus, anal area of wings (when present) with single fold, and the R2 sclerite of the male genitalia with two tubercles (Grandcolas 1999; Beccaloni and Eggleton 2013; Estrada-Álvarez and Guadarrama 2013). The family includes about 40 genera and about 215 species globally (Beccaloni and Eggleton 2013; Qiu et al. 2018). In Europe, this family is represented by a small number of taxa, distributed exclusively in the Mediterranean area (Bohn 2022). Although still restricted to the Mediterranean region, the most widespread and well-known corydiid species is Polyphaga aegyptiaca (Linnaeus, 1758) which inhabits some countries neighboring Serbia (Hristov and Chobanov 2016; Bohn 2022). This species, also named the Egyptian desert cockroach, is the only representative of its genus in Europe (Bohn 2022). Until now, no species of the family Corydiidae has been recorded in Serbia. Polyphaga plancyi Bolívar, 1883 also known as Chinese sand roach, is a large and oval corydiid species, with a body length 20.5–23.6 mm in males, and 31.2–36.4 mm in females (Fig. 1). Its distribution includes China (Beijing, Hebei, Henan, Hunan, Jiangsu, Shaanxi, Shandong and Shanxi provinces) and Russia (southern Baikal) (Qiu et al. 2018). The unpublished data indicates that P. plancyi originally occured in Northern China, but due to its medicinal value, it was introduced to southern part of the country during 1970s and 1980s (Qiu et al. 2018). It is known that the Chinese sand roach can be found in human dwellings (Qiu et al. 2018). From the other species of the genus Polyphaga Brullé, 1835, males can be distinguished by dark, flatter and wider body, while females can be very easily recognized by the presence of distinct yellowish markings and very short and sparse hairs on the body margins (Chopard 1929; Qiu et al. 2018). The mitochondrial genome of P. plancyi is completely sequenced since 2016 and it consists of 15,547 base pairs and 37 genes (Liu et al. 2016). Together with Eupolyphaga sinensis (Walker, 1868), P. plancyi is an important species in traditional Chinese medicine and there are numerous articles dealing with the investigation of biological effects of various compounds isolated from these cockroaches (Zhu et al. 2016; Zhu et al. 2020a, 2020b; Xie et al. 2021). Material and methods A photo of a cockroach posted on Facebook group of insect lovers, enthusiasts and citizen scientists named “Insekti Srbije (Insects of Serbia)” immediately caught our attention because we realized the specimen does not belong to native European entomofauna. The specimen was hand-collected from the floor of a warehouse in The first arrival of Polyphaga plancyi in Europe 165 1 cm Figure 1. A general morphology (dorsal view) of Polyphaga cf. plancyi Bolívar, 1883 (drawing by N. Vesović). suburban Belgrade, Serbia, on October 26, 2022. Later that day, it was taken over from its collector and kept alive in the terrarium of the first author. It was fed on banana, bread and protein food for aquarium fish. Species identification was performed using the keys, redescription and illustrations from Qiu et al. (2018). Photographs of the P. plancyi specimen were taken using a Nikon D5300 digital camera equipped with Tamron SP 90mm f/2.8 Di Macro lens and Sigma EM-140 DG ring flash. The habitus drawing was made in Adobe Photoshop CS6, version 13.0.1. Results The only specimen, an adult female was found in a warehouse in Radiofar (Surčin municipality), suburban neighborhood on the outskirts of the Serbian capital, Belgrade. Precisely, the specimen was found in a part of a warehouse with goods imported from Shanghai, China. At the moment of collecting, the insect was smeared in mud and covered with dust. Polyphaga cf. plancyi Bolívar, 1883 Material examined: SERBIA; 1♀; Belgrade, Surčin municipality, about one kilometer east of the center of the suburban neighborhood of Radiofar (44.826265, 20.315071), in the vicinity of Radiofar Forest; 26.10.2022; leg. A. Đurišić (Fig. 2). 166 Vujić & Vesović (...truncated)