Quote:
Originally Posted by onlyricky
Melanocoryphus albomaculatus: I think there is no body doubles here  At least i've not seen them
|
There are quite a few of these little red fellows in Southern Europe, and while I'm quite confident that the ID is right I just don't know
all those species and don't have images of
all the possible candidates that I don't know so personally
I truly can't rule out that there might still be a lookalike.
To name but one,
Horvathiolus superbus is really quite similar (many people confuse the two) and it's even in a different genus. Both are supposedly present in Portugal and additionally for example
Horvathiolus guttatus (and many others) that I have really no idea about. To truly know for sure you would have to be able to rule out at least all other Lygaeidae recorded for Portugal (and maybe even some other Families??).
This is a general problem with insect IDs: You simply can't be 100% sure unless you know
all similar species (which makes it hard to 'start' with truly large groups)
or the species is distinctive looking
and you have reliable information that there are no lookalikes.
Quote:
|
Coccinella septempunctata: Coccinella Magnifica its not here! at least i've never noticed it here!
|
Well, I have really tried hard to find them in the Netherlands and have as yet been unsuccessful, but I'm pretty sure they
are around nevertheless
Fauna Ibérica (at
faunaiberica.es or
fauna-iberica.mncn.csic.es) is a nice project and is working on a
database which often holds good info/checklists (but not for all groups of critters yet). Don't confuse with
faunaiberica.org which I find not nearly as useful.
Anyway, consulting their database learns that
C.magnifica is (supposedly) present in Iberia, which makes sense as it's also known from South-France.
Interestingly,
Fauna Europaea provides
this list of Coccinellidae for Portugal and Spain which
does include
C.magnifica but on the
list of Coccinella for Portugal alone the species is not featured (which I had quickly checked yesterday).
From that, one would think that
magnifica is only present in Spain and indeed not in Portugal,
but please be aware that both databases are still
quite unreliable(!!) and often based on old literature. So, there is a small chance still that the animal would already be recorded for Portugal and/or might just decide to travel there one of these days. As the beetles are quite hard to distinguish from the 7-spot it may easily go unnoticed.
Nevertheless, the larvae are supposedly somewhat lighter in colour so I'd say yours should still be good for
Coc.sep.
Quote:
|
Cantharis sp.: Seems a Cantharis rufa
|
Yes, but the problem is it
also seems a
Cantharis cryptica etc etc.
From the sources mentioned above one would even think that
rufa isn't even present in Portugal (
FE: Cantharis in Pt) - like I wrote yesterday, I hadn't checked
C.rufa supposedly is not even present in all of Iberia. Contrary,
C. cryptica is supposed to be present and
C. pallida in Spain only.
So that would suggest that for starters
C. cryptica is a much better choice than
rufa or even
pallida.
However, that would not take into account all the 20-30 species of
Cantharis and
Rhagonycha listed for Portugal that
I have no clue about - just know a little bit about the species present in the Netherlands and even that very much on a beginners level.
So, as far as I'm concerned I would have to stop at "tribe Cantharini" and even that would be "pushing my luck" as I'm really not 100% certain it couldn't possibly be one of the other beetles in the family Cantharidae.
If you want to find out more exactly, you will need to find more information on how to separate the different genera (for
Cantharis and
Rhagonycha it's a minute detail in the tarsus of the hind legs, as kindly detailed by Paul M
here) and get a better idea of
all the "candidates" in your area, like try finding images of all species of Cantharini listed, finding out what time of year they are active etc etc.
If, like me, you don't own professional literature on the taxonomic group that handles your region it will probably be very hard to scrape this info/images together (but you will learn
a lot just by trying!) and you will have to
doubt anything you find on the internet to boot, so you will probably need to find some forum(s) where knowledgeable people experienced with the animals in your area answer questions and even doubt their answers at first too, until you are absolutely certain they're not "full of sh*t".
If you can tell us what languages you command we can probably help out with some links to good websites and other fora.
From everything I read the hoppers are not an easy group to identify (and there are not many true experts 'available' on the internet for questions). Have a look at the lists for this group on FE and FI to get an idea (
here is the FE-list) and keep in mind these are probably not even complete. Also note that
Cicadella viridis as such is not listed for Portugal (it is for Spain!), which may be due to lack of recording in Portugal and/or due to bad quality of the info in the database.
If you go ahead and assume that your animal
is indeed
Cicadella viridis (I just said it looks like it
) you may want to catch a few and prove beyond any doubt that it is this species and you'll be set for a scientific publication that lists the species as "new" for Portugal
Dear Ricky, this seems to be a bit of a rant, but I thought it would be a good idea to illustrate where some of the pitfalls in identification of these animals are. This is by no means an attempt to scare you away from identifications - it's fun and you learn so much while trying - but it is an attempt to show you that it's good to be prudent about the 'matches' you find.
IMHO there are way too many enthusiastic wrong IDs on the internet as it is. All too often people just stick 'any name' on their images and publish them and than other people use those images for reference to ID their own and the web quickly becomes a messy and utterly useless clutter of wrong info mixed in with a few accidental correct pieces.
Please do
not let all this get you down, and please
do keep showing your Portuguese critters here - all this is as educational to us as it is (hopefully) to you and I for one enjoy the puzzles and learning a bit more about 'southern' biodiversity in the process!
Cheers, Arp
Linear Mode
