Meliboeus (KubAN, 2016)

Niehuis, Manfred, 2020, A review of the jewel beetles of the genus Meliboeus in Israel (Coleoptera: Buprestidae), Israel Journal of Entomology (Oxford, England) 50 (2), pp. 159-176 : 174

Additional Meliboeus (subgenus Meliboeoides ) species developing in thistles could occur in Israel or expand their distribution into Israel. These are, for example, the North African Meliboeus amethystinus (Olivier, 1790) and M. granulatus (Gory & Laporte, 1839) ( Fig. 16), the latter species I have resurrected some years ago (Niehuis 2014 a; Verdugo & Niehuis 2016); M. maceki ( Niehuis & Strauss, 2015) , described from Iraq; M. robustus (Küster, 1852) and M. skalei (Niehuis, 2011) from South-eastern Turkey and Iran; M. makrisi ( Mühle & Brandl, 2009) from Cyprus; and the Arabian Meliboeus dhaferi (Niehuis & Strauss, 2018 a) , M. margotana ( Novak, 2010) , M. saudiarabicus (Niehuis & Strauss, 2018 b) .

Twelve species of Meliboeus are presently known from Israel. The diversity of landscapes, habitats, flora, as well as the geographic position of the country (these characteristics have been recently reviewed by Kravchenko et al. (2020) and Ustjuzhanin et al. (2020)) raise expectations for further species of Meliboeus to occur in the country.