Deridea notata Thomas, 1897

Bologna, Marco A. & Turco, Federica, 2007, The Meloidae (Coleoptera) of the United Arab Emirates with an updated Arabian checklist, Zootaxa 1625 (1), pp. 1-33 : 6

Deridea notata Thomas, 1897

Distribution. This species, endemic to the Arabian Peninsula, represents one of the Afrotropical elements of the Arabian fauna; it belongs to a genus which includes two other species from central and southeastern Africa.

New records. Saudi Arabia: Wadi Jīzān, 21.v.1979, G. Filipponi coll. 2 exx. ( CB) ; Wadi Qarma , 14.ii.1937, H. St. J. B. Phillby coll. 1 ex. ( BMNH) ; Shiara , i.1946, L. Tillin coll. 1 ex. ( BMNH) .

Yemen: Yemen, Milliken coll. 1 ex. ( BMNH); Lahej, 1 ex. ( BMNH) .

Remarks. The systematic position of this genus is controversial and still needs a detailed analysis ( Bologna & Pinto 2002); it was referred to the subfamily Nemognathinae ( Selander 1991) .

Deridea notata was considered polytypic by Kaszab (1960; 1966), who described the ssp. minor , characterized by smaller size, head narrowed posteriorly and completely black or only with a small frontal red spot, middle and posterior sterna and legs completely black. Both the nominate subspecies and the ssp. minor (we examined the Holotypes of both at BMNH) were described from Yemen (Type localities, respectively: “ Yemen ” and “ Yemen, Lahej near Aden ”); the first was then cited from Saudi Arabia by Kaszab (1983). The head of the Arabian specimens we examined is entirely black in the male, and red with two small black spots on occiput in the female; other distinctive characters proposed by Kaszab (1960) appear inconsistent. The new synonymy Deridea notata minor Kaszab, 1960 = Deridea notata Thomas, 1897 is consequently proposed.