identifier	taxonID	type	CVterm	format	language	title	description	additionalInformationURL	UsageTerms	rights	Owner	contributor	creator	bibliographicCitation
D42CE735FFABFFB0FF2E055F28AC34D5.text	D42CE735FFABFFB0FF2E055F28AC34D5.taxon	http://purl.org/dc/dcmitype/Text	http://rs.tdwg.org/ontology/voc/SPMInfoItems#GeneralDescription	text/html	en	Metophthalmus hispanicus Reitter 1908	<div><p>Metophthalmus hispanicus</p><p>was described from Madrid (Spain) by REITTER (1908) and is currently known from France (Corsica), Spain (mainland) and Morocco (REITTER, 1908; ESCALERA, 1914; JOHNSON, 2007; RÜCKER, 2011; ROSE &amp; VINCENT, 2014 1; OTERO &amp; L̎PEZ, 2016 2). It should be noted thAt RÜCKER (2021) included MAinlAnd FrAnce (“ FrAnkreich: Pyrénées OrientAles”) in the distribution of  M. hispanicus . However, this seems to be a confusion with the range of  M. ragusae Reitter, 1875, which is indeed recorded from that French department (cf. ROSE &amp; VINCENT, 2014). Furthermore, while RÜCKER (2021) also included the Canary Islands in the distribution range of  M. hispanicus, we were unable to trace any primary records from that Spanish archipelago.</p><p>1</p><p>The male specimen recorded by ROSE &amp; VINCENT (2014) from Corsica was collected in 1937, a shelf life of 77 years before the specimen was finally studied and the data published.</p><p>2 Oddly, OTERO L̎PEZ &amp; (2016) consider  M. hispanicus an Iberian endemic, despite mentioning that its synonym  M. proximus Reitter, 1908 was described from both  Spain (holotype) and Morocco (paratype) .</p><p>The Iberian distribution (Map 1) includes the Spanish provinces of (only the earliest record for each province is presented): Madrid and Cádiz (REITTER, 1908), Seville (DAJOZ, 1970), and Barcelona (TR̎COLI &amp; DIÉGUEZ, 2023).</p><p>Material examined and iNaturalist Portuguese records</p><p>PORTUGAL;</p><p>Évora district;</p><p>— Reguengos de Monsaraz municipality:</p><p>x <a href="https://tb.plazi.org/GgServer/search?materialsCitation.longitude=-7.455037&amp;materialsCitation.latitude=38.3427" title="Search Plazi for locations around (long -7.455037/lat 38.3427)">Campinho</a> (38.342701 -7.455037; MGRS: 29SPC 3544, 170 m a.s.l.), 31/12/2023 [1 ex., Axel Gosseries leg., MHNC-UP col.: MHNCUP-ART-41230; photographed by A. Gosseries (https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/195445186)].</p><p>x <a href="https://tb.plazi.org/GgServer/search?materialsCitation.longitude=-7.450113&amp;materialsCitation.latitude=38.34439" title="Search Plazi for locations around (long -7.450113/lat 38.34439)">Campinho</a> (38.344392 -7.450113; MGRS: 29SPC 3545, 179 m a.s.l.), 2/04/2024 [1 ex., Axel Gosseries leg. under the bark of  Punica granatum L., MHNC-UP col.: MHNCUP-ART-41233; photographed (Fig. 1) by A. Gosseries (https://www.inaturalist.org/observations/205145980)].</p><p>The two specimens studied were identified with the monograph of OTERO &amp; L̎PEZ (2016) and were easily determined as  M. hispanicus by the 10-segmented antennae typical of the nominal subgenus (the second Iberian species,  M. niveicollis, has 9-segmented antennae, characteristic of the subgenus  Bonvouloiria Jacquelin du Val, 1859).</p><p>While only two of the specimens were collected and identified to species level, the second author observed  Metophthalmus specimens ten times in Campinho between November 2023 and April 2024. They were found under stones, but also under the bark of small dry  Quercus rotundifolia Lam. branches and behind bark scales of small living  Punica granatum trees. Under stones, they were in very close proximity of e.g.  Palpimanus gibbulus Dufour, 1820 ( Araneae:  Palpimanidae) and  Anthrenus isabellinus K̡ster, 1848 ( Coleoptera:  Dermestidae). Under  P. granatum bark scales, one of them was, as shown in Fig. 1, in the middle of other beetles such as  Boromorphus tagenioides (Lucas, 1849) ( Coleoptera:  Tenebrionidae) and  Typhaea stercorea (Linnaeus, 1758) ( Coleoptera:  Mycetophagidae). We suspect that given the abundance of  Metophthalmus in the Campinho montado, the species must be under-detected elsewhere, at least in southern Portugal, probably due to its minute size. The first specimens were actually only discovered once zooming on pictures of other invertebrates, which then led the second author to begin to search for them more actively.</p></div>	https://treatment.plazi.org/id/D42CE735FFABFFB0FF2E055F28AC34D5	Public Domain	No known copyright restrictions apply. See Agosti, D., Egloff, W., 2009. Taxonomic information exchange and copyright: the Plazi approach. BMC Research Notes 2009, 2:53 for further explanation.		Plazi	Grosso-Silva, José Manuel;Gosseries, Axel	Grosso-Silva, José Manuel, Gosseries, Axel (2024): Metophthalmus (Metophthalmus) hispanicus Reitter, 1908 (Coleoptera: Latridiidae: Latridiinae), new species for Portugal. Arquivos Entomolóxicos 28: 293-296, DOI: 10.5281/zenodo.12813391
