Rediscovery and Distribution of 

 Bembidion plagiatum Zimmermann (Coleoptera: Carabidae) 



Richard L. Hoffman 



Department of Biology, 

 Radford University, Radford, Virginia 24142 



ABSTRACT. — Bembidion plagiatum Zimmermann, heretofore consid- 

 ered one of the scarcest American members of the genus, is reported 

 from new localities in New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Virginia, and North 

 Carolina. At the two known Virginia localities the species seems to 

 prefer silt-coated sandbars up to several meters distant from the stream 

 side, a habitat not shared with other bembidiids. Collection dates sug- 

 gest that the species is active from April to early July; adults have not 

 been found after that time. Both external details and structure of the 

 penis suggest that plagiatum is closely related to B. lacunarium rather 

 than the species with which Lindroth (1963) associated it on the basis 

 of color pattern. 



At the time Prof. C. H. Lindroth revised the bembidiid fauna of 

 boreal North America (1963) and re-established Bembidion plagiatum 

 as a valid species, he had seen only two specimens: the original type 

 from "Maryland" and a female that he collected at Long Point, Ontario. 

 Other specimens must have been found in between these two, however, 

 to judge from Hay ward's remark (1897:82) that "Specimens with a sub- 

 marginal pale spot {plagiatum Zimm.) bear some resemblance to scopul- 

 inum . . . "; nonetheless Lindroth quite justifiably stated that plagiatum 

 was "Apparently strictly eastern and very rare.". 



Despite a renaissance of interest in American bembidiids in recent 

 years, I am not aware of any subsequent discoveries of plagiatum. Hav- 

 ing had the good fortune to recently find this species in Virginia (as well 

 as in museum collections and other people's notes), I feel that some 

 remarks on its apparent favored biotope and the enumeration of new 

 localities will be of interest to carabidologists. 



The first specimen that came to my attention entered through the 

 back door, so to say, as the result of my curiosity about the Southern 

 Pines, North Carolina, record for B. scopulinwn Kirby cited in Brim- 

 ley's Insects of North Carolina (1938:117). That this northern species 

 would occur naturally at Southern Pines seemed utterly implausible so I 

 obtained on loan all of Brimley's Bembidion material for a personal 

 examination. Although the tray labeled scopulinum does contain a spec- 

 imen of that species from New Hampshire, the single female from 



Brimleyana No. 7:145-150. July 1981. 145 



