Abstract:
Three new species of the Cape high-mountain stag beetle genus, Colophon Gray (Coleoptera: Lucanidae),
from South Africa are described. They are C. deschodti new species, C. switalae new species, and C.
struempheri new species. The new taxa fall within a species complex of geographically disjunct entities
related to Colophon stokoei Barnard. Furthermore, the mitochondrial COI gene shows a high degree of
sequence divergence, with pairwise genetic distances between the species ranging between 7.4-10.7%. The
new species are illustrated by photographs. Colophon eastmani nagaii Mizuka- mi is raised to species level
on the basis of geographic range and molecular differences between it and the nominate subspecies. This
brings the total number of described species in the genus to 21. An updated checklist of the South African
species of Colophon is also provided.
