New distribution of Reticulitermes speratus speratus(Blattodea: Rhinotermitidae) in Korea

Reticulitermes speratus(Kolbe) is economically important pest in East Asia including Korea, Japan, and China where they infest wooden structures in urban areas. Previously, it has been reported that R. speratusconsists of 5 subspecies, R. speratus kyushuensisMorimoto, R. speratus speratusKolbe, R. speratus leptolabralisMorimoto, R. speratus okinawanusMorimoto, R. speratus yaeyamanusMorimoto, while only R. speratus kyushuensiswas recorded in Korea in the past. However, it remains elusive if different subspecies of R. speratusother than R. speratus kyushuensisare present in Korea. In this study, we report the first record of R. speratus speratusfrom Korea, which was verified using soldier morphology and molecular characteristics obtained from a mitochondrial gene. R. speratus speratusKolbe, 1885 (Blattodea: Rhinotermitidae) are found in several provinces, mainly southern regions in Korea, whereas R. speratus kyushuensisare distributed throughout the country. Our morphological comparison showed that R. speratus speratuscan be distinguishable from R. speratus kyushuensisby the ratio of the posterior postmentum width to length. In the molecular comparison, R. speratus speratusrevealed genetic differences of 3.06% (range 2.60–4.10%) from R. speratus kyushuensisusing cytochrome oxidase subunit IIgene sequences.