CLARIFICATION OF THE STATUS OF TRECHUS COMASI HERNANDO (COLEOPTERA: CARABIDAE: TRECHINI) FROM THE IBERIAN PENINSULA AND ITS TAXONOMIC POSITION

摘要

Due to its strategic geographical position, the Iberian Peninsula boasts a fauna of diverse origin (European, North African, Mediterranean, as well as a significant percentage of endemism) and acts as a “bio-geographical crucible” (Ortuno 2002). Among the most speciose and endemism-rich carabid groups is the genus Trechus Clairville, 1806. Of the more than 600 Trechus species known (Moravec et al. 2003), 51 have been reported from the Iberian Peninsula (Serrano 2003; Ortuno and Arillo 2005; Ortuno and Toribio 2005), the greater part of them being stenotopic dwellers in montane or subterranean environments. Most of these Iberian species may be categorized as endemic fauna; their geophilous, hygrophilous, and sciophilous ways of life would appear to link them closely to ground and underground conditions. In endogean and hypogean environments, up to 19 species are known to inhabit caves and abysses (Ortuno and Arillo 2005); in some cases, they may have originated in the Mesovoid Shallow Substratum. A new species has recently been added to this cluster of species, Trechus comasi Hernando, 2002, a taxon which has only been found in Cueva Basaura (Navarra-Northern Spain) and whose on-off localization has focused the attention of Spanish carabidologists. In Hernando’s (2002) opinion, it is a recent colonizer of subterranean environments, which is why it lacks the more typical morphological adaptations characteristic of hypogean dwellers. From a systematic point of view, T. comasi has been put in the “T. grenieri-group” proposed by Jeannel (1927), but in his wider sense (sensu Casale and Laneyrie 1982). Moreover, Hernando (2002) postulated a close relationship between this species and Trechus brucki Fairmaire, 1862.