Dear colleagues,
I'm an applied enotmologist employed at the State Office for Health and Social Affairs Mecklenburg-Western Pomerania, N-Germany. One of the services we offer is to determine arthropods suspected to be pest species or parasites etc, collected by private persons or pest management professionals etc.
From time to time we receive Bethylidae too, in most cases people got stung before ...
The last speciemen were send a few days ago. It is a brown, wingless female, claws are simple without a basal hook, antenna 12-segmented. Regarding the keys available to me (Perkins 1976, Peeters et al. 2004, Azevedo et al. 2018, Sellenschlo 2019) it should be a Cepalonomia sp., probably C. gallicola? But the distal antennal segments aren't black – is this really a characteristic of C. gallicola? Unfortunately I'm not familiar with Bethylidae.
As far as I could find out C. gallicola is not recorded for Germany jet, so may my id is wrong.
So please have a look to the attached pictures, hopefully they are detailed enough to clarify the species. Please let me know if you should need other details/views ... if necessary I'll send the speciemen to one of you. (the cuticular surface was still a bit wet due to a storage in glycerine, before I've taken the pictures)
Thanks a lot for any comments or suggestions,
Kai
Dear Kai,
this is indeed a female of the Cephalonomia gallicola aggregate, and probably of the nominate species that Ashmead (1887) described from Florida. It is a warehouse species with a global distribution. Specimens found outdoors in southern Europe however may form a separate taxon.
Van Emden (1931) found specimens instored malt in Halle and described the species as Cephalonomia caesarorum. Later he corrected the name into C. quadridentata Duchaussoy, which has been synonymised with C. gallicola. So the species is known from Germany and probably present in several entomological collections, where Anobiidae are its hosts. The colour of the antennae is variable and appears to be related to the size of the specimens. Study of the males can probably give some interesting clues.
With regards, Jeroen de Rond
Dear Jereon,
many thanks for your prompt reply and the helpful information regarding C. gallicola. The pest management professional is already asked for additional speciemen - hoping for some males. Unfortunately in most cases we're receiving only single or very few specimen, even if mass occurrences are described ... and the fast and broad apply of insecticides is still a common practice.
Thanks again and kind regards,
Kai
The pics is similar to Cephalonomia gallicola, but might it is better to use special identification key.
Dear Kai, congratulations for this record! So far we have indoor records of Cephalonomia waterstoni, C. quadridentata and C. tarsalis in Germany. Outdoors we have C. cf. carinata, C. cisidophaga, C. hammi and C. formiciformis. In any case it is an interesting record! Please feel free to contact if you are interested in a short faunistical communication in a German entomological journal. Best regards, Thomas
Dear Thomas,
a minor correction to the indoor species that you mention: Cephalonomia quadridentata is listed as a junior synonym of C. gallicola by Gordh & Móczár (1990). The indoor Bethylidae species are relatively well-known, but the taxonomic situation for the outdoor species is deplorable. Most European keys just cover a single country and therefore are quite incomplete. I'm working on a key to the species of the temperate climate zone of Europe. Dozens of types need to be requested before the true identity of several species is clear, but besides this much more material is needed to get a good overview of the variability range. Outdoor Bethylidae are usually collected incidentally and series of material are scarcely represented in collections.
Dear Jeroen, thank you so much for these information! I just know a little about this taxonomical nightmare. I know M. Sorg who worked intensively at this family years ago. I will contact you for some questions because I always collect material when collecting beetles. Best regards, Thomas
Dear Thomas, dear Jeroen,
thanks a lot for your additional comments. Jeroen, if the key should once be completed I would be highly interested in a copy ... ;-)
In the last days I asked some colleagues working in the same field if they received Bethylidae-samples too, but they are rather rare. Despite of that I'm convinced, that C. gallicola is much more widespread than recorded/published. Please find attached an additional paper reporting the species 2006 in Nürnberg , unfortunately in German only. May this is new to you?
All the best, Kai
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