Abstract
We review the species of Plecia Wiedemann, 1828 from Korea, including three previously unrecorded species, P. hadrosoma Hardy & Takahashi, 1960, P. nagatomii Hardy & Takahashi, 1960, and P. septenrionalis Hardy, 1953. P. hardyi Yang & Luo, 1988 is proposed as a new synonym of P. hadrosoma. The egg, final-instar larva, and pupa of P. longiforceps Duda, 1934 are described for the first time. Descriptions of each species are given with photographs of diagnostic characters, and also a key to the Korean species of Plecia. The mitochondrial cytochrome c oxidase I (COI) gene sequences are used as DNA barcodes for species delimitation at the molecular level.
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