Hister grandicollis Illiger, 1807

Penati, Fabio, 2009, An updated catalogue of the Histeridae (Coleoptera) of Sardinia, with faunistic, zoogeographical, ecological and conservation remarks *, Zootaxa 2318, pp. 197-280 : 259

Hister grandicollis Illiger

Hister grandicollis Illig. var. gibbus Dahl in litt.: Gemminger & Harold 1868: 769

Literature data. “ Sardinia ” ( Gemminger & Harold 1868; Bargagli 1871; Bertolini 1872 –1878, 1904; Porta 1926; Barajon 1966; Vienna 1980; Mazur 1984; Audisio et al. 1995; Mazur 1997, 2004; Yélamos & Lackner 2004).

Notes. W-Mediterranean species very common in the Ibero-Balearic area ( Yélamos 2002) and present also in France and Algeria ( Mazur 2004). Frequently reported from Sardinia in the literature except by Luigioni (1929), who listed it among the species of doubtful origin or doubtful identification and excluded it from the Italian beetle fauna, and Penati and Vienna (2002), who consider its occurrence in Sicily and Sardinia as doubtful.

No Sardinian specimen, however, was found in the examined collections, and it is hard to believe that H. grandicollis can have escaped the attention of entomologists given its large size (6–9 mm long). Most likely, the older records ( Gemminger & Harold 1868; Bargagli 1871) were based on specimens of the melanic forms of Hister quadrimaculatus (ff. pelopis Marseul and gagates Illiger) and H. pustulosus (f. nigripennis Bickhardt). In conclusion, I consider its occurrence in Sardinia as highly improbable.