Byrrhus pustulatus (Forster, 1771)

Japarashvili, Shota, Bulbulashvili, Natalia, Seropian, Armen, Chkhartishvili, Tinatin, Iankoshvili, Giorgi, Chitadze, Beka, Balkhamishvili, Sopio, Arsenashvili, Eka, Todua, Mariami & Memishishi, Aleksi, 2023, New and well-forgotten: DNA-assisted records of two beetle (Insecta, Coleoptera) species new for the fauna of Georgia with an update on the distribution of some other little studied taxa, Caucasiana 2, pp. 63-70 : 63

Byrrhus pustulatus (Forster, 1771)

Materials

Examined:

GEORGIA • South West of Ijareti; N41.6490°, E42.7012°; 1503m a.s.l.; 09.10.2021; ISU, CaBOL ID: 1018729 (Fig. 7); leg: CaBOL team.

Genetics:

The BOLD identification engine indicated high similarity of the sequence yielded from the specimen with CaBOL ID 1018729 (BOLD: ACL0075) to the COI of Byrrhus pustulatus from Germany (BIN ID: ACL0075, similarity 99.08%). The morphology of the Georgian specimen perfectly corresponds to the description provided in the keys by Arnoldi (1965) and Lafer (1992b).

Remarks:

To date, 7 species of Byrrhidae comprising 4 genera are known from Georgia ( Tarkhnishvili et al. 2013). The genus Byrrhus includes 31 described species, with both larvae and adults feeding on moss, algae, and liverworts ( Lafer 1992b). So far, 4 species from the genus are known from Georgia ( Jager and Putz 2016). B. pustulatus has a wide distribution in the Palaearctic region, with the nearest findings in Armenia and Azerbaijan ( Jager and Putz 2016). The specimen from Ijareti represents the first record of the species from Georgia.