Stenolophus abdominalis persicus Mannerheim, 1844

Abdel-Dayem, Mahmoud S., Rasool, Iftekhar, Elgharbawy, Ali A., Nagel, Peter & Aldhafer, Hathal M., 2018, Faunistic inventory and zoogeographical analysis of the ground beetles (Coleoptera, Carabidae) of Garf Raydah Nature Reserve, Southwestern of Saudi Arabia, and description of a new species of Paussinae, Zootaxa 4514 (3), pp. 341-371 : 350

Stenolophus abdominalis persicus Mannerheim, 1844

Material examined. GRNR: 1897 m: 08. VI.2014, PT, 1 ♂. 2387 m: 06. VI.2014, LT, 1 ♀. 2409 m: 06. VI.2014, HP, 1 ♂.

Distribution. A PAL_SAR_SJP species, which is widely distributed in Eastern, Southwest and Southern Europe (AM, AZ, BG, GE, GR, HR, HU, IT, MD, RO, RS, RU (south European Territory), TR, UK) extending southward across the Central and Southwest Asia (IL, IQ, IR, JO, KG, KZ, LB, SY, TJ, TM, UZ) and eastward to south and east Asia (CN, AF, PK). This subspecies is a new record for the Arabian Peninsula.

According to the present knowledge Stenolophus abdominalis Gené, 1836 comprises two subspecies: S. abdominalis abdominalis which occurs mainly in the western part of the Mediterranean Region and S. abdominalis persicus which occurs mainly in the eastern part of the Mediterranean Region area and in Middle Asia ( Jaeger & Kataev 2017). According to the Palaearctic catalogue the subspecies S. abdominalis abdominalis occurs also in KSA ( Jaeger & Kataev 2017). However, if the two geographical forms really represent subspecies, the KSA populations should belong to the subspecies S. abdominalis persicus which is known from neighboring countries (B. Jaeger, personal communication).

Life forms and Remarks. MSCD species. Adults were collected from Olea europaea and the African pencil cedar forest communities (1897–2409 m.a.s.l.) in the GRNR.