Pamphagus Thunberg, 1815

Massa, Bruno, 2013, Pamphagidae (Orthoptera: Caelifera) of North Africa: key to genera and the annotated check-list of species, Zootaxa 3700 (3), pp. 435-475 : 445

Pamphagus Thunberg, 1815 (type-species: Gryllus elephas Linnaeus)

A key to species has been proposed by Massa et al. (1993); it includes the following taxa, three of which live in Italy and are not present in North Africa: Pamphagus caprai Massa, 1992 (East Morocco and West Algeria), Pamphagus elephas (Linnaeus, 1758) (Central-North Algeria), Pamphagus cristatus Descamps et Mounassif, 1972 (East Algeria and West Tunisia), Pamphagus djelfensis Vosseler, 1902 (central inner Algeria, also found at Belezma, near Batna, by Benkenana et al. 2012), Pamphagus tunetanus Vosseler, 1902 (North Tunisia and West Libya), Pamphagus meridionalis Descamps et Mounassif, 1972 (Central Tunisia), Pamphagus marmoratus Burmeister, 1838 ( Italy, Sicily), Pamphagus sardeus Herrich-Schaeffer, 1840 ( Italy, Sardinia), Pamphagus ortolanii Cusimano et Massa, 1976 ( Italy, Lampedusa Is.), Pamphagus auresianus Massa, 1992 ( Algeria, Aurés Mts.) and the recently described Pamphagus batnensis Benkenana et Petit, 2012 (Aurés Mts.) . Bounechada et al. (2006) and Benkenana et al. (2012) have also listed from Algeria Pamphagus marmoratus , that Massa et al. (1993, 2012) consider an endemic taxon to Sicily ( Italy). A deeper comparison of specimens should be carried out and for the moment I consider Algerian specimens as P. cf. marmoratus . In addition, the record of P. elephas from Fezzan by Usmani (2007) should be revisited on the light of keys proposed in the papers of Descamps & Mounassif (1972) and Massa et al. (1993).