Amara anthobia A. Villa & G.B. Villa

Jarrett, J. R. & Scudder, G. G E., 2001, Carabidae (Coleoptera) New To British Columbia, With One Species New To Canada, The Coleopterists Bulletin 55 (3), pp. 378-384 : 379

Amara anthobia A. Villa & G.B. Villa

BC: Hope, 8.VI.1980 (G.G.E. Scudder) [ UBC]; Merritt , Midday Valley ,

21.X.1924 (K.F. Auden) [ UBC]; Wellington , 14.V.1946 (Richard Guppy)

[UBC].

Introduced from Europe, A. anthobia has a markedly disjunct distribution in North America, with limited occurrence on the Atlantic Coast in MD and VA, and wide distribution on the Pacific Coast in CA, OR and WA (Bousquet and Larochelle 1993). Separate Atlantic coast and Pacific coast introductions are indicated, but this may not have been associated with ballast­transport, as A. anthobia evidently is not a permanent inhabitant of the British Isles ( Lindroth 1957), and has been reported in the west in greenhouses (Hatch 1949). However, the records from BC were not associated with greenhouses, although the Hope and Wellington localities were within town boundaries. The Midday Valley specimen on the other hand appears to have been collected during sampling of insects associated with Pinus ponderosa dominated forest habitats. How it reached here some 20 years before the previous recorded occurrence on the coast is unknown. In northern continental Europe, A. anthobia occurs in open country, usually on sandy, sparsely vegetated, often cultivated soil, and in woodland ( Lindroth 1986).