Dinusa species

Assing, V., 2014, On the Staphylinidae of Israel II, with a revision of some species of Dinusa SAULCY (Insecta: Coleoptera), Linzer biologische Beiträge 46 (2), pp. 1179-1210 : 1198

On the Dinusa species in the Middle East and North Africa

The oxypodine genus Dinusa SAULCY, 1865 previously contained eleven species, most of them associated with ants of the genus Messor, very rarely found, and distributed in the Mediterranean region from Algeria and Greece to the Middle East (ASSING 2013b, c; SMETANA 2004). Five species, none of them revised, have been recorded from the Middle East from Lebanon and Syria southwards to Israel; two unrevised species, D. hipponensis FAUVEL, 1886 ( Algeria) and D. santschii WASMANN, 1912 ( Tunisia) , have been reported from North Africa. Except for D. hierosolymata SAULCY, 1865 and D. particeps ABEILLE DE PERRIN, 1896 , attempts at locating the type material of the Middle East species have been unsuccessful. According to the curator in charge at the MNHNP, where the Saulcy and Abeille de Perrin collections are housed, there are no type specimens of D. jebusaea SAULCY, 1865 and D. davidica SAULCY, 1865 (a junior synonym of D. hierosolymata ) in the Saulcy collection, nor was any type material of D. angulicollis ABEILLE DE PERRIN, 1896 , D. particeps , and D. saulcyi ABEILLE DE PERRIN, 1896 located in the Abeille de Perrin collection. In fact, in the latter collection there are labels of D. saulcyi , D. davidica , and D. particeps with corresponding pin holes and ants, but the beetles are missing (TAGHAVIAN e-mail 27 May, 2014), an observation confirmed by MARC TRONQUET (pers. comm.). The only Dinusa specimens found in the MNHNP are three syntypes and one additional specimen of D. hierosolymata in the Jarrige collection and one non-type female of D. jebusaea in the Abeille de Perrin collection. A subsequent search in the Fauvel collection yielded a syntype of D. particeps , but no specimens qualifying as unambiguous type material of the species described by Saulcy or of D. saulcyi .

As can be inferred from the external characters (body size 1.6-1.7 mm; very slender antennae) and the host ant indicated in the original description of D. santschii , which is based on two specimens collected from nests of " Pheidole pallidula " in Tunisia ( WASMANN 1912) and deposited in the Wasmann collection (housed at the Natuurhistorisch Museum Maastricht), this species undoubtedly belongs to a different genus, possibly Cypha LEACH, 1819 , where it is placed with some doubt.