Distribution of Onthophagus vacca and O. medius (Coleoptera: Scarabaeidae, Scarabaeinae) in Romania

By

Drăghici, Andreea-Cătălina
Ruicanescu, Adrian
Cuzepan-Bebeșelea, Gabriela
Chimișliu, Cornelia
Manci, Cosmin-Ovidiu

Type

Article

Date of Publication

2019-7-31

Original Publication

Travaux du Muséum national d'histoire naturelle "Grigore Antipa"

Volume

62

Series / Issue

Issue: 1

Pages

31--41

Subjects

Altitude preference , Distribution , O. medius , Onthophagus vacca , Romania

Contributed by

Pensoft Publishers

Language

English

Published by

București, România Muzeul Național de Istorie Naturală "Grigore Antipa" -2009

Identifiers

DOI: https://doi.org/10.3897/travaux.62.e35197

 

Abstract

Morphological and molecular data indicate that two valid species exist in Europe within the O. vacca group of species, O. vacca (Linnaeus, 1767) and O. medius (Kugelann, 1792) (Roy et al., 2015). This is supported also by the fact that they are widely sympatric (Rössner et. al., 2010). The research of Rössner et. al. (2010) mentions for the first time the species O. medius for Romania. The aim of our study is to check specimens from major museum collections and some personal collections from the country and to assign them to O. medius or O. vacca.We have examined 417 specimens belonging to the following collections: National Museum of Natural History ''Grigore Antipa'' Bucharest, Brukenthal National Museum- Natural History Museum Department from Sibiu and the personal collections of authors. We have extracted elevation data for each specimen and we have created distribution maps.The biogeographic distribution for Romania shows the ranges of O. vacca and O. medius overlap and they are found in all the country's bioregions. Our study shows a high ecological plasticity in both species. Our data apparently indicate a preference for altitudes below 500 meters, possibly influenced by non-random sampling.