Phelister haemorrhous Marseul, 1853

Penati, Fabio, 2009, An updated catalogue of the Histeridae (Coleoptera) of Sardinia, with faunistic, zoogeographical, ecological and conservation remarks *, Zootaxa 2318, pp. 197-280 : 255-256

Phelister haemorrhous Marseul

Phelister haemorrhous Fairm. : Bargagli 1871: 41

Hister (Phelister) haemorrhous Mars. : Luigioni 1929: 1017

Hister haemorrhous: Barajon 1966

Literature data. “ Sardinia ” ( Baudi di Selve 1864; Schmidt 1885; Heyden et al. 1891 “introdotta” [= “introduced”]; Bertolini 1904; Porta 1926; Barajon 1966; Mazur 1984 and 1997 “ introduced to Sardinia ”, 2004).

Notes. The presence of this species in Sardinia has always been subject to discussion, as explained in detail by Vienna (1980: 353). It was first recorded from the island by Baudi di Selve (1864) in a note, with these exact words: “ Phelister haemorrhous Mars. in Sardinia a D. Ghiliani et a me ipso as Quercus suberis corticibus a Formicis invasis haud raro lectus, as nomine Paromali fulvicornis Payk. jampridem Entomologis a me missus ” [= Phelister haemorrhous Mars. not rarely collected by Mr. Ghiliani and myself in Sardinia under barks of Quercus suber invaded by ants, for a long time already sent by me to entomologists under the name Paromalus fulvicornis Payk. ].

Such record was subsequently reported uncritically by some authors (see “Literature data”) but not by Marseul (1863b, 1882 –1889), describer of the species as well as main expert of the family in the second half of the nineteenth century. Later, P. haemorrhous was excluded from both the Palearctic Coleoptera catalogue ( Winkler 1925) and the Italian catalogue ( Luigioni 1929), where the species is listed amongst those of uncertain origin or doubtful determination. This choice, followed also by Vienna (1980), seems currently not accepted only by Mazur, who cites Phelister haemorrhous as “ introduced to Sardinia ” in his two world catalogues ( Mazur 1984, 1997) and records it from “ Sardinia ” in the recent Palearctic catalogue ( Mazur 2004).

Obviously, the “controversy” regarding the presence of this species in Sardinia has always intrigued me, given that the genus Phelister Marseul is endemic to Central-South America, where it is present with 98 species ( Mazur 1997), a dozen of which occur also in North America ( Kovarik & Caterino 2001); besides P. haemorrhous , two species – P. canalis Lewis and P. rouzeti (Fairmaire) – have been recorded in Europe from Spain and France, respectively (see for example Mazur 1997, 2004; Yélamos 2002).

I therefore decided to personally examine the Baudi di Selve collection, and was able to ascertain that two specimens are kept under the name Phelister haemorrhous , one of which lacks both head and pronotum. They both belong to an exotic species (unknown to me) of the genus Epierus Erichson. Both show incomplete elytral striae (the 5 th and the sutural one not reaching beyond the proximal half of the elytra) and the intact specimen carries a small piliferous tubercle on the epistoma, a male sexual character of some Epierus spp. This finding ultimately proves that Baudi’s original record was due to a misidentification, but also that no specimen of Phelister haemorrhous has ever been captured in Sardinia.

Furthermore, Phelister species are typically attracted by dung and carcasses ( Kovarik & Caterino 2001); this makes it unlikely for “many specimens” to have been found under bark. Bark, on the contrary, is a typical habitat of many Epierus (cf. ecology of E. comptus ); nevertheless, I consider it impossible for the two specimens in Baudi’s collection to have been collected in Sardinia (and therefore Baudi 1864 was not referring to these), and they are more likely exotic specimens received as a gift (or in exchange) and later confused with material of Sardinian origin.

Although I am unable to provide any indisputable evidence, I am convinced that the beetles collected by Baudi and Ghiliani were in fact Epierus comptus , as possibly confirmed by two Sardinian specimens collected by Vittore Ghiliani, later sold to Giacomo Doria ( Poggi & Conci 1996: 53) and still preserved in the MSNG collection. Further evidence supporting this thesis is that Baudi initially identified the beetles collected in Sardinia under cork oak bark as “ Paromalus fulvicornis Payk. ”, i.e. Hister fulvicornis Fabricius , a Neotropical species still valid and now ascribed to genus Epierus , of which it is type species (see Mazur 1997). This species should have been known to Baudi through Paykull’s (1811) monograph, where it is described and illustrated (pl. X, fig. VI); however, having seen this illustration, I realized that it could easily represent also Epierus comptus – a Palearctic species that couldn’t have been known to Paykull (1811) in that it was described 23 years later by Erichson (1834) – both species being characterized by complete elytral striae.