A new species of the genus Hilethera Uvarov, 1923 (Orthoptera: Acrididae: Oedipodinae) from China and its complete mitochondrial genome

The new species, Hilethera xinjiangensis sp. nov. (Orthoptera: Acrididae: Oedipodinae) is described based on specimens collected from Xinjiang, northern China. The new species is similar to H. brevipennis Zheng & Lu, 2002 and H. turanica Uvarov, 1925, but differs from: (1) dark brown in general coloration, (2) darker coloration in forewings, (3) forewings longer than H. brevipennis but shorter than H. turanica , (4) cubital area of forewings boarder than H. brevipennis and H. turanica , (5) hind tibiae dark brown with two light yellow pre-basal rings, while dark with one fade pre-basal ring in H. brevipennis and light yellow with three dark rings in H. turanica. In addition, the complete mitogenome of holotype was sequenced using next-generation sequencing technology. The total length of the assembled mitogenome is 16,145 bp, representing 13 protein-coding genes, 22 transfer RNA genes, two ribosomal RNA genes and one noncoding region (D-loop region). The new mitogenome sequence is compared with published Oedipodinae mitogenomes and the phylogenetic relationships within the subfamily are reconstructed. The results infer that the gene cox1 could be a useful marker for higher phylogenetic level, while the genes nd5 and rrnL could be potentially useful markers between closely related species.