Nebria Latreille, 1802

Bousquet, Yves, 2012, Catalogue of Geadephaga (Coleoptera, Adephaga) of America, north of Mexico, ZooKeys 245, pp. 1-1722 : 130-131

Genus Nebria Latreille, 1802

Nebria Latreille, 1802: 89. Type species: Carabus brevicollis Fabricius, 1792 designated by Latreille (1810: 426). Etymology. According to Ledoux and Roux (2005: 29), the name came from the Greek nebrios (fawn), possibly alluding to the coloration of Nebria complanata , the first species cited by Latreille in the genus. However Latreille (1804: 275) stated that the name derived from nebrias which is part of the list of unknown fishes mentioned by the elders. According to Dalby (2003: 121), nebrias, cited in Aristotle and others, is perhaps the dogfish Scyliorhinus canicula [feminine].

Distribution.

About 380 species (535 species-group taxa) in the arctic, subarctic, boreal, and temperate areas of the Nearctic and Palaearctic (including northern Africa and the Canary Islands) Regions arrayed in 25 subgenera (Ledoux and Roux 2005: 76 excluding Nippononebria and Vancouveria ). The North American fauna has 52 species (82 species-group taxa) placed in four subgenera.

Identification.

Ledoux and Roux (2005) reviewed the species of the world and provided keys for the identification of the species. Lindroth’s (1961a) key included all North American species then known but many species-group taxa have been described subsequently by Kavanaugh (1979a, 1981b, 1984, 2008).

Taxonomic Note.

The species of Nebria (including Nippononebria ) have been segregated in two main lineages by Ledoux and Roux (2005: 71-75), one (named Vetanebri ) represented in the Palaearctic Region by 90 species and in the Nearctic Region by the three species of Vancouveria , the other one ( Notanebri ) containing about 290 species, 52 in the Nearctic and almost 240 in the Palaearctic.