27 Aug New subtribe, new genus and new species of Carabid beetle from Bulgaria!
Our members Pier Mauro Giachino and Dante Vailati have recently published on the review ZooKeys (2011; 117: 59–72) a very interesting issue that describes a new genus and a new species of Coleoptera Trechinae from Bulgaria. The article: “A new remarkable subterranean beetle of the Rhodopes: Paralovricia gen. n. beroni sp. n. belonging to Lovriciina new subtribe (Coleoptera, Carabidae, Trechinae, Bembidiini)”, has been realized in collaboration with Borislav Guéorguiev of the National Natural History Museum of Sofia (Bulgaria).
Secondo gli autori, the new genus belongs, together with the already known genera Lovricia Pretner, 1979 and Neolovricia Lakota, Jalžić & Moravec, 2009 to the new subtribe Lovriciina, that is described and discussed in the work. The specimens of Paralovricia beroni, a sole male and a sole female, were collected in two different caves of the Western Rhodopes (Bulgaria). The male holotype is deposited to the National Museum of Sofia, the paratype female in the collection od Pier Mauro Giachino.
In the opinion of the authors is very probable that P. beroni, just like most known Anillini, is not typical cave-inhabitant. It lives, probably, in the deep network of microcaverns and cracks, from where penetrates accidentally into people-accessible caves. This can explains why the specimens are extremely rare.
This interesting new species is dedicated to one of its collectors, Dr. Petar Beron, famous bulgarian biospeleologist, former Director of the National Natural History Museum of Sofia and former Vice-President of the Bulgarian Parliament. Our congratulations also to him, for the impulse given in the last decades to the knowledge of the Bulgarian subterranean fauna.
See entire article