| Valle de Puértolas - Puyarruego | |
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| Nederlands | Dung beetles: species list |
Castellano |
| Like I've told already in the introduction our sampling effort in 2004 wasn't very impressive. I didn't use any special extraction method and I didn't use bait. All I did was trying to catch as many beetles as possible during an hour or so on 9 different days. |
| Following keys were used for the identification of the beetles: | |||
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Jacques Baraud - 1992 - Coléoptères Scarabaeoidea D'Europe Faune de France - 78 Société Linnéenne de Lyon - Lyon ISBN 2-903052-12-3 |
Martín-Piera, F. y López-Colón, J.I. - 2000 -
Coleoptera, Scarabaeoidea I. Fauna Ibérica vol. 14 Museo Nacional de Ciencias Naturales - Madrid ISBN 84-00-07997-3 |
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| Although the sample isn't very big - 476 individuals - the
table for most species suggests a preference for a specific kind of manure. Only four
Aphodius species have been found in both cow and sheep faeces.
All the other 26 species are confined to one or the other. We must be careful though, not
to jump too fast to conclusions. Most of our cow-samples were taken at the higher altitudes and all of the sheep droppings were sampled at lower altitudes (1). The differences therefore could be caused by the altitude and not by a preference for some kind of faeces.
A. consputus, one of the four generalists is the most common beetle in our samples: 178 individuals of the 476. The second most abundant species are A. obscurus, A. conjugatus and A. haemorrhoidalis all with between 30 and 40 finds. Aphodius beetles in general show slightly higher numbers than the Onthophagus beetles. The most common Onthophagus is O. furcatus with 29 individuals. The other species of the genus are found in numbers not higher than 10. The difference could be an artefact caused by a flaw in my sampling method. Aphodius beetles are dwellers but Onthophagus beetles are tunnelers and are therefore sometimes out of reach for my visual hunting method. |
| Species | sheep-cow | locality (1) |
|---|---|---|
| Anoplotrupes stercorosus (Scriba) | -c | Plan 15.VII.2004, Nerin 06.XI.2004 |
| Aphodius foetidus (Herbst) | s- | Puyarruego 24.V.2004, Puyarruego 29.V.2004 |
| Aphodius paracoenosus Balth. & Hrub. | s- | Puyarruego 24.V.2004, Puyarruego 29.V.2004 |
| Aphodius thermicola Sturm | s- | Puyarruego 04.XI.2004 |
| Aphodius varians Duftschmid | s- | Puyarruego 24.V.2004 |
| Aphodius consputus Creutzer | s-c | Puyarruego 04.XI.2004, Puyarruego 07.XI.2004 (2) |
| Aphodius erraticus (L.) | s-c | Puyarruego 24.V.2004, Puyarruego 29.V.2004, Fiscal 11.VII.2004, Plan 15.VII.2004 |
| Aphodius granarius (L.) | s-c | Puyarruego 24.V.2004, Puyarruego 29.V.2004, Puyarruego VIII.2004 |
| Aphodius quadrimaculatus (L.) | s-c | Puyarruego 24.V.2004, Fiscal 11.VII.2004 |
| Aphodius conjugatus (Panzer) | -c | Puértolas 05.XI.2004 |
| Aphodius constans Duftschmidt | -c | Puértolas 05.XI.2004 |
| Aphodius corvinus Erichson | -c | Plan 15.VII.2004 |
| Aphodius elevatus (Olivier) | -c | Fiscal 11.VII.2004, Puyarruego VIII.2004 |
| Aphodius fimetarius (L.) | -c | Fiscal 11.VII.2004, Plan 15.VII.2004, Puértolas 05.XI.2004, Nerin 06.XI.2004 |
| Aphodius haemorrhoidalis (L.) | -c | Fiscal 11.VII.2004, Plan 15.VII.2004 |
| Aphodius obscurus (Fabr.) | -c | Plan 15.VII.2004 |
| Aphodius scrutator (Herbst) | -c | Plan 15.VII.2004 (3) |
| Sisyphus schaefferi (L.) | s- | Puyarruego 29.V.2004 |
| Euoniticellus fulvus (Goeze) | -c | Fiscal 11.VII.2004 |
| Caccobius schreberi L. | s- | Puyarruego 29.V.2004 |
| Onthophagus coenobita (Herbst) | s- | Puyarruego 29.V.2004 |
| Onthophagus furcatus (Fabr.) | s- | Puyarruego 24.V.2004, Puyarruego 29.V.2004, Puyarruego 04.XI.2004 |
| Onthophagus grossepunctatus Reitter | s- | Puyarruego 24.V.2004, Puyarruego 29.V.2004 |
| Onthophagus lemur (Fabr.) | s- | Puyarruego 29.V.2004 |
| Onthophagus opacicollis Reitter | s- | Puyarruego 24.V.2004, Puyarruego 29.V.2004, Puyarruego 04.XI.2004 |
| Onthophagus ovatus (L.) | s- | Puyarruego 24.V.2004 |
| Onthophagus vacca (L.) | s- | Puyarruego 24.V.2004, Puyarruego 29.V.2004 |
| Onthophagus fracticornis (Preyssler) | -c | Plan 15.VII.2004, Puértolas 05.XI.2004 |
| Onthophagus similis Scriba | -c | Fiscal 11.VII.2004 |
| (1) | Puyarruego: pastures surrounding the village - alt. 700m (sampled: sheep & cow); Puértolas: pastures at the foot of the Castillo Mayor - alt. 1150m (sampled: cow); Nerin: Mondoto - alt. 1800m (sampled: cow); Plan: Basa de la Mora - alt. 1900m (sampled: cow); Fiscal: path towards Sasé - alt. 1100m (sampled: cow) | |
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| (2) | Aphodius consputus was really the most abundant species. In cow dung it was the only species found at that time (10m., 5f) and of the 173 individuals taken from sheep droppings 163 were A. consputus (63m, 100f). | |
| (3) | Only 2 females were found; I wish I had a male for a check of the aedeagus. |