| 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 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 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. |
| Soort | schaap-koe | localiteit (1) |
|---|---|---|
| Anoplotrupes stercorosus (Scriba) | -k | Plan, Nerin |
| Aphodius foetidus (Herbst) | s- | Puyarruego |
| Aphodius paracoenosus Balth. & Hrub. | s- | Puyarruego |
| Aphodius thermicola Sturm | s- | Puyarruego |
| Aphodius varians Duftschmid | s- | Puyarruego |
| Aphodius consputus Creutzer | s-k | Puyarruego (2) |
| Aphodius erraticus (L.) | s-k | Puyarruego, Fiscal, Plan |
| Aphodius granarius (L.) | s-k | Puyarruego |
| Aphodius quadrimaculatus (L.) | s-k | Puyarruego, Fiscal |
| Aphodius conjugatus (Panzer) | -k | Puértolas |
| Aphodius constans Duftschmidt | -k | Puértolas |
| Aphodius corvinus Erichson | -k | Plan |
| Aphodius elevatus (Olivier) | -k | Fiscal, Puyarruego |
| Aphodius fimetarius (L.) | -k | Fiscal, Plan, Puértolas, Nerin |
| Aphodius haemorrhoidalis (L.) | -k | Fiscal, Plan |
| Aphodius obscurus (Fabr.) | -k | Plan |
| Aphodius scrutator (Herbst) | -k | Plan (3) |
| Sisyphus schaefferi (L.) | s- | Puyarruego |
| Euoniticellus fulvus (Goeze) | -k | Fiscal |
| Caccobius schreberi L. | s- | Puyarruego |
| Onthophagus coenobita (Herbst) | s- | Puyarruego |
| Onthophagus furcatus (Fabr.) | s- | Puyarruego |
| Onthophagus grossepunctatus Reitter | s- | Puyarruego |
| Onthophagus lemur (Fabr.) | s- | Puyarruego |
| Onthophagus opacicollis Reitter | s- | Puyarruego |
| Onthophagus ovatus (L.) | s- | Puyarruego |
| Onthophagus vacca (L.) | s- | Puyarruego |
| Onthophagus fracticornis (Preyssler) | -k | Plan, Puértolas |
| Onthophagus similis Scriba | -k | Fiscal |
| (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) | |
|---|---|---|
| (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. |