Monday, July 28, 2008

Peck 2001

Peck, S.B. 2001. Review of the carrion beetles of Australia and New Guinea (Coleoptera: Silphidae). Australian Journal of Entomology. 40: 93-101.

The author gives keys, distributional maps and bionomic summaries for Nicrophorus heurni, Diamesus osculans, Ptomaphila ovata, Ptomaphila lacrymosa, and Ptomaphila perlata.

World fauna of Silphidae reviewed by Portevin 1926.
Australian fauna of Silphidae reviewed by Britton 1994.

-all species of Silphidae in Australia are mostly collected less than 300 km from the coastline (author speculates that it could be too dry in the interior - this could easily be tested in the lab).

-Silphids are not known to occur on the major Pacific islands of New Zealand, Fiji, or New Caledonia (author also did field work in these places and did not find them).

-there is no evidence that any species of Nicrophorus has every crossed the climatic dry zone bordering Torres Strait from New Guinea onto the Australian continent.

Nicrophorus heurni Portevin 1926
Type locality: North-west New Guinea, Doormanpad Camp, headwaters of the Mamberamo River, 1410 m elevation.
-distributed throughout upland forests in both Irian Jaya and Papua New Guinea. Collected from 480 m to 2750 m at all months of the year. Collected from carrion, human-dung, mercury-vapour, and ultraviolet lights.

No informative characters were found on the male aedeagus of Oxelytrum or Ptomaphila species! But, several characters of the female genitalia were found to be informative, as well as various external structures.

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