Coelostoma fabricii ( Montrouzier, 1860 )

Jia, Fenglong, Aston, Paul & Fikáček, Martin, 2014, Review of the Chinese species of the genus Coelostoma Brullé, 1835 (Coleoptera: Hydrophilidae: Sphaeridiinae), Zootaxa 3887 (3), pp. 354-376 : 374

Coelostoma fabricii ( Montrouzier, 1860)

Ochthebius Fabricii Montrouzier, 1860: 245 . For complete synonymy see Hansen (1999).

Comments. The type locality of this species is New Caledonia. Orchymont (1928) reported the species from New Caledonia, Australia, Tasmania, Hawaii, New Guinea, Borneo, Sumatra, Vietnam ( Tonkin, Annam) and Laos. Hansen (1995, 1999) reported this species from Hawaiian Island. The first report of the species from China (Peiping (=Beijing) and Amoy (=Xiamen, Fujian)) is by Orchymont (1935). Fikáček (2010a) studied the specimens of C. fabricii from New Caledonia, provided a diagnosis and illustrated the aedeagus. He however followed Orchymont (1928, 1935) and Hansen (1999) in considering C. fabricii as widely distributed in Southeast Asia and the West Pacific.

Orchymont (1936) reexamined the specimens from Xiamen, China, recorded by him earlier under the name C. fabricii ( Orchymont 1925, 1935), and treated them together with specimens from Vietnam (Anam, Tonkin), Sumatra and Borneo as a new species C. fallaciosum . Coelostoma fallaciosum is common in southern China (see above). All subsequent records of C. fabricii from continental Asia are based on the misidentified records by Orchymont (1928, 1935). It seems hence very likely that C. fabricii does not occur in continental Asia. The report on this species from Fujian, Guangdong and Guangxi by Jia & Pu (2002) is based on the incorrect identification. The record from Beijing probably refers to C. orbiculare (Fabricius) that is a very common species in northern China.