A new Dianous species (Coleoptera, Staphylinidae, Steninae) from China, with a key to Chinese species of the coerulescens complex Kai Shi 1, 2 and Hong-Zhang Zhou * ,1 1 Key Laboratory of Zoological Systematics and Evolution, Institute of Zoology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, 1 Beichen West Road, Chaoyang 100101 Beijing, P. R. China 2 Graduate School of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, China Introduction The genus Dianous Leach 1819 is one of the two Steni- nae genera (Coleoptera, Staphylinidae), with more than 210 species described up to now (Herman, 2001; Læbl & Smetana, 2004; Puthz 2005a, b). Its type species is D. coerulescens Gyllenhal. Puthz (1981) made the ear- liest attempt to recognise species-groups (group I and group II) for all the species included in the genus Dia- nous. Naomi (1988) revised Japanese species of the genus Dianous and erected four species-groups which obviously different from those established by Puthz (1981). Subsequently, based on morphological studies with especial considerations of sexual characteristics, Puthz (2000, 2005a) divided one species-group (group II) into eight complexes, namely the calceatus complex, yunnanensis complex, lobigerus complex, aereus-andrewesi complex, ocellatus complex, chinen- sis complex, coerulescens complex and luteoguttatus complex, meanwhile maintained another (group I) as it was. Furthermore, Puthz (2000) reviewed the species of Dianous from China and the adjacent countries. In this paper, we select to follow the Puthz’s system, but the internal relationships of this diverse genus are not very clear and some taxonomic problems are still unre- solved; not all the species (e.g. D. naicus Puthz, D. puthzi Lundgren, D. smetanai Puthz) fit into this system. Therefore we consider that it is important to offer an accurate diagnosis for the species groups, to identify the species correctly, and to revise the regional fauna. We hope that our results can promote such kind of studies and provide a reliable basis for zoogeo- graphic and phylogenetic studies of Chinese Dianous in future. Faunistically, China owns one and covers at least other two of 25 global biodiversity hotspots, i.e. the mountains of southwest China, Himalayas and Indo-Burma (Myers et al. 2000). At least 93 species of Dianous were re- corded from China, which amounts to 44 % of the known species of the genus worldwide. In this paper, based on thorough and detailed data of Dianous speci- mens from China, we discussed distribution patterns of the genus Dianous in China and recognized some new components of the Dianous fauna in this study. These additional distributional data may benefit the Dianous zoogeographic study to a great extent in future. This paper describes also one new species, D. zhe- jiangensis sp. n. from Zhejiang province in East China, # 2009 WILEY-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim Received 21 November 2008 Accepted 15 June 2009 Published 11 November 2009 Key Words Zoogeography Taxonomy Oriental Region Abstract A new Dianous species (Coleoptera, Staphylinidae: Steninae), D. zhejiangensis sp. n. from Zhejiang province, China is described and a key to Chinese species of the coeru- lescens complex is given. The distributional patterns of the genus Dianous in China are discussed. Dtsch. Entomol. Z. 56 (2) 2009, 289 – 294 / DOI 10.1002/mmnd.200900025 * Corresponding author, e-mail: zhouhz@ioz.ac.cn