Grammognatha euphratica Latreille & Dejean, 1822

Pavlou, Christoforos, Bolanakis, Giannis, Kardaki, Ljubitsa & Trichas, Apostolos, 2025, Forty years of ground-beetle sampling in Crete. A major contribution to the Carabidae (Coleoptera, Adephaga) fauna of Crete (Greece), Contributions to Entomology 75 (2), pp. 269-288 : 269-288

1. Grammognatha euphratica Latreille & Dejean, 1822

Fig. 1

Habitat and general distribution.

Grammognatha euphratica has a wide distribution extending from Morocco and southern Spain over northern Africa, parts of the eastern Mediterranean, Arabia and Central Asia as far as Pakistan and northern India ( Cassola 1981; Franzen 2001). The species is found in salt marsh and salt meadow habitats, mainly active at hours of twilight ( Trautner and Geigenmüller 1987; Arndt et al. 2011) or night ( Cassola et al. 2014). Within the eastern Mediterranean, more or less recent distribution data exist from Cyprus, Turkey, Israel and Egypt ( Franzen 2001; Şekeroğlu and Aydin 2002; Austin et al. 2008), while recently, the beetle has been discovered on the island of Sant’Antioco in Italy ( Cassola et al. 2014). In Greece, it is also present on the island of Rhodes (( Horn 1910) without exact locality); however, this occurrence has not been reconfirmed by the latest known surveys of Wiesner (1990, 1994). The only known locality on Crete until the present study was that of Palaiokastron, in east Crete ( Cassola 1981).

Material examined.

• Heraklion : Aposelemis River, 35.280642°N, 25.358629°E, 131 m elev., 1.VI.1989, handpicking, 1 spm, leg. Trichas A. ( NHMC) ; • Aposelemis River mouth 35.335003°N, 25.330901°E, 28.V.2015 – 30.VII.2015, pitfall traps, 9 spms, leg. Pavlou Chr. ( NHMC) ; • same data, but 30.VII.2015 – 27.XI.2015, 2 spms ; • Kouremenos Beach wetland , 35.204385°N, 26.271490°E, 13.IV.2022 – 10.VI.2022, pitfall traps, 4 spms, leg. Bolanakis G. ( NHMC) ; • same data, but 13.IV.2022, handpicking, 1 spm, leg. Pavlou Chr. ( NHMC) ; • Chrysi isl. , Vages Beach, salt-lake, 34.874799°N, 25.728071°E, 23.III.2023 – 13.VII.2023, pitfall traps, 2 spms, leg. Bolanakis G. ( NHMC) .

Comments.

Cassola (1981) was the first author to report Grammognatha euphratica from Crete (“ Palaiokastron ”, east Crete or Palaikastro / Palekastro – not to be confused with the tautonym in central Crete). Both this record and the ones from Rhodes ( Cassola 1973) needed confirmation according to Franzen (2001) and Arndt et al. (2011). For example, the record from Rhodes was never recovered during the surveys of Wiesner in 1990 and 1994 ( Franzen 2001). In essence, the records presented here are the first of this rare and fragmentarily distributed beetle from Crete in four decades. We confirm the species’ presence in Crete and also expand its distribution in a southern satellite islet of Crete, Chrysi. All our records are from salt-lakes and are confined in the central-east part of the island. Moreover, the Aposelemis specimens represent the westernmost findings of this species on Crete, pointing to an eastern origin of the species’ dispersal.

Figures

Figure 1. Grammognatha euphratica in its natural habitat.