Coleoptera

Casale, Achille, Grafitti, Giuseppe & Latella, Leonardo, 2009, The Cholevidae (Coleoptera) of Sardinia *, Zootaxa 2318, pp. 290-316 : 292-293

Coleoptera Cholevidae and biospeleological research in Sardinia

It is not surprising that research on this group of insects has often been conducted by biospeleologists: in fact, biospeleology as a science officially began with the description of the above-mentioned Leptodirus hochenwarti , and biospeleological research in Sardinia began with the discovery of a cholevid species. Raffaello Gestro, director of the Museo Civico di Storia Naturale di Genova, discovered the cholevid today known as Ovobathysciola gestroi ( Fairmaire, 1872) ( Fig. 1) (attributed, in the original description, to the genus Adelops Tellkampf, 1844 ) in a cave in Ogliastra, the Su Marmori cave near Ulassai, in 1871 ( Fairmaire 1872; Gestro 1904). A second cave cholevid, Speonomus (Batinoscelis) lostiai ( Dodero, 1904) , was described a few years later (as Bathyscia Schiødte, 1848 ) by Agostino Dodero, who shared with Gestro a passion for entomological research in Sardinia.

Other Cholevidae of great interest were described in the same period by well known German-speaking specialists, including the epigean (sometimes troglophile) species Ptomaphagus (Ptomaphagus) sardus Seidlitz, 1887 , Choleva (Choleva) doderoi Breit, 1903 , Catops speluncarum Reitter, 1885 and, among hypogean species, Ovobathysciola majori ( Reitter, 1885) . The latter species was dedicated to the paleontologist and biogeographer Forsyth Major, who discovered it during a digging campaign in caves of the Orosei Gulf (most likely in the “grotta dell’Arciprete”, which corresponds to the Toddeitto Cave: Reitter (1885); Gestro (1904)). In the following years, the fundamental monographic revisions by Jeannel (1924) provided the correct taxonomic position for this species.

The first systematic biospeleological research conducted in Sardinian caves were organized by Saverio Patrizi and Marcello Cerruti in the ‘50s: from 1952 to 1956, they conducted four expeditions on the island, and discovered highly specialized endemic species (in some cases belonging to new genera) of various animal groups, which were described by themselves or by other specialists (Latella 2007). Such research led to an updated catalogue of the hypogean arthropods of the island ( Cerruti 1964, 1968).

Patrizi and Cerruti’s research was continued by a long series of biospeleological explorations and studies of Sardinia, starting in the first half of the ‘60s, and conducted by local researchers and by researchers from other Italian and foreign regions (for a detailed chronicle regarding the entire island, or single parts of it, see Cassola (1982), Grafitti et al. (1999), Grafitti (2002a), Casale et al. (2006), Grafitti (2007a, 2009), Casale et al. (2008), Grafitti and Merella (2008)). This research is still in progress today, with very interesting results.

Specifically concerning the Coleoptera Cholevidae of Sardinia, the following events from the last decades are worthy of mention: 1. The discovery of Ovobathysciola grafittii Rampini & Sbordoni, 1980 and Patriziella nuragica Rampini & Zoia, 1990 in the north-west of the island by biospeleologists from Sassari (Giuseppe Grafitti and Mauro Mucedda, respectively): the two species belong to genera which had thus far been considered exclusive of Jurassic “Supramonte” massifs with older fauna, localized in central-eastern Sardinia; 2. The synthesis of the knowledge on cave Cholevidae of the Italian fauna by Sbordoni et al. (1982), with particular emphasis on the biogeography of the group; 3. The review by Giachino (1990) of those species of Bathysciola Jeannel, 1910 which are close to B. damryi ( Abeille de Perrin, 1881) (with description of the new species B. doderoi Giachino, 1990 ); the genus is represented mostly by edaphic and endogean species, which are often troglophile in Sardinia; 4. The reviews by Giachino and Vailati (1993) of the subfamily Anemadinae and a synthesis by Zoia (1998) of Italian Cholevidae ; 5. The publication of georeferenced distributional data for the Italian species by Zoia and Latella (2005, 2006), within the CKmap project (coordinated by the Natural History Museum of Verona and the Italian Ministry for the Environment); 6. The discovery by Mauro Mucedda of a further species belonging to the genus Patriziella Jeannel, 1956 ( P. muceddai Casale, 2004 ) in Urzulei “Supramonte”; 7. Studies of the phylogenetic and phylogeographic relationships of some of the taxa conducted with a biochemical and biomolecular approach by Sbordoni et al. (1990) and Caccone and Sbordoni (2001), and with a morphological and cladistic approach by Fresneda et al. (2007); 8. Field investigations into specialized hypogean taxa of the genus Ovobathysciola Jeannel, 1924 , and investigation into their distribution (Casale unpublished data).