Paederus ( Harpopaederus ) gottschei KOLBE, 1886

Assing, Volker, 2015, On the Harpopaederus fauna of China (Coleoptera: Staphylinidae: Paederinae), Linzer biologische Beiträge 47 (1), pp. 163-190 : 165

Paederus ( Harpopaederus) gottschei KOLBE, 1886 ( Map 1 )

Paederus pseudobaudii ALEKSANDROV, 1934: 151 ; nov.syn.

C o m m e n t: According to WILLERS (2001b), the depository and identity of the type material of P. pseudobaudii from "Hengtaohotze" ( Heilongjiang) is uncertain, but there is little doubt that it is conspecific with P. gottschei , also because ALEKSANDROV (1934) himself synonymized the species with P. chinensis . The material from Heilongjiang studied by WILLERS (2001b), some of which had previously been identified as P. pseudobaudii , all belonged to P. gottschei .

Paederus gottschei is the most widespread - and probably also the most common - representative of Harpopaederus in the East Palaearctic region, its distribution ranging from the Russian Far East across Northeast China to North and South Korea. For additional records see LI & ZHOU (2007). So far, all the material of Harpopaederus from this region has proved to belong to P. gottschei , making it seem most unlikely that P. pseudobaudii represents a distinct species. In consequence, P. pseudobaudii is formally placed in synonymy with P. gottschei . The distribution of P. gottschei in China is illustrated in Map 1 .

Figures

Map 1: Distribution of Paederus gottschei (open circles) and pooled distributions of the remaining Harpopaederus species (filled circles) in China.