Two new species of Elathous Reitter, 1890 (Coleoptera: Elateridae) from Syria

Abstract

Two new species of the genus Elathous Reitter, 1890 from Syria are described and illustrated. Elathous serjillensis sp. n. is morphologically similar to another Syrian species, E. ekaterinae Preiss, 2003, from which it differs by the shapes of head, pronotum and male genitalia. Elathous transversalis sp. n. can easily be distinguished from its congeners by its pronotum which is distinctly wider than long. The discovery of new Elathous species in the Levant further highlights the importance of this region as a biodiversity hotspot.

http://www.zoobank.org/urn:lsid:zoobank.org:pub:70BC99EF-FCCD-43A6-ACB5-9CA7A8BC9C21

Keywords:

• Click-beetles
• Coleoptera
• Elateroidea
• distribution
• diversity
• Palaearctic region

Acknowledgements

We are very grateful to the following colleagues for the loan of material: M. Geiser (NHMUK), C. Locatelli, J. Constant (RBINS), S. Blank (SDEI), Giuseppe Platia (Italy), P. C. Cate (Austria), L. Friedman (SMNH), and especially Josef Mertlik (Czech Republic). Miroslav Mikát (Czech Republic) kindly provided us with the photographs of the type locality of E. serjillensis sp. n.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.