Cardiophorus ruficollis (Linnaeus) (Elateridae): not a British species

摘要

What little evidence there is for Cardiophorus ruficollis (Linnaeus) being a British insect dates to the late 18~(th) and early 19~(th) Centuries and is, at best, very flimsy. It is not clear on whose authority and on what evidence the species (as Elater ruficollis) was included as one of only six Elateridae known from the British Isles according to the wide ranging 'Synopsis of the Natural History of Great-Britain and Ireland' (Berkenhout, 1789). No localities or records were cited and there are good reasons to doubt the bona fides of other species included in that volume in the belief that they had been found in the British Isles: Ampedus sanguineus (Linnaeus), for example (Mendel, 2019) was another of the six species included. Berkenhout's description 'Black. Thorax red. On each shell 8 striae. Shells bluish' fails to mention the distinct black band at the front margin of the pronotum. A colour illustration in Martyn's 'The English Entomologist' (1792; tab. 30, fig. 3) is similarly unconvincing. The red pronotum lacks the characteristic black anterior band, having instead a black central spot, more like the female of the south-east European C. discicollis (Herbst) than C. ruficollis. Thereafter, C. ruficollis was assumed to be British. It was better described by Marsham (1802) and figured by Donovan (1811, vol. 15, pl. 518), but the latter's description 'anterior part of the thorax red' and the figure purporting to be Elater ruficollis the 'Rufous-necked Elater, or Springer Beetle' clearly indicates Ischnodes sanguinicollis (Panzer).