A review of the Chinese Empicoris (Hemiptera: Reduviidae: Emesinae) with descriptions of five new species and discussion on species-group division in the genus

Abstract The thread-legged bug genus Empicoris Wolff, 1811 (Hemiptera: Heteroptera: Reduviidae: Emesinae) is a cosmopolitan group of about 90 species, but only four have been reported in China previously. In the present study, five new species of Empicoris , namely E. bifurcatus sp. nov. , E. discaloides sp. nov. , E. qianlei sp. nov. , E. qinpengi sp. nov. , and E. sinicus sp. nov. , are described from China; four additional species, E. brachystigma (Horváth, 1914), E. gracilentus (Jakovlev, 1907), E. magnispineus Ishikawa, 2008, and E. tesselatoides Wygodzinsky & Usinger, 1960, are newly recorded in the country; and an identification key to the Chinese species of Empicoris is provided. In addition, the species-group division of Empicoris is discussed based on morphological information of the newly discovered species and a phylogenetic analysis for COI barcode data of selected species, indicating that some previously proposed species-groups (e.g., E. discalis -group and E. salinus -group) may be artificial assemblages and need to be reconsidered.