Ulf Nylander's Trip to Crete

**ULF's trip to Crete 1993**

**"Beetle collecting trip" to Crete.**

Ulf Nylander, Åsvägen 15, Valbo

We, a brave group of beetle enthusiasts, consisting of Gösta Gillerfors, Varberg, Stig Lundberg, Luleå, Ingvar Rydh, Olofström and the undersigned, decided that this year, namely 1993, we would, as a change from many years of collecting work in Turkey, visit Crete. This island has many interesting and relatively recently discovered endemic species of longhorn beetles (fam. Cerambycidae) and jewel beetles (fam. Buprestidae). In many cases the biology is unknown or insufficiently known. Naturally we hoped to shed light on all this and, moreover, find new unknown species. We had no shortage of ambitions.

The trip started on 6 May from Arlanda and we were accommodated in a small apartment hotel outside Chania. The weather was not the best, drizzle from a completely overcast sky, windy and cold.

The first thing we did was hire a small car for the next 2 weeks. This was an easy task as the entire main street in the small tourist village was crowded with rental companies. After visiting a few rental agencies we received a very favourable offer which we could not resist, and a small Citroën became our workhorse.

Before nightfall we could spend a few hours exploring the immediate surroundings. In the hotel's courtyard there was a small pile of wood. We quickly found that the wood was infested by a longhorn beetle, but from the larval galleries we could not determine which species. Only after we had come home to Sweden did several specimens of Xylotrechus stebbingi hatch out. This is a species described from Tibet and which has also been collected on one occasion in northern Italy. It appears that this species is in a dispersal phase and should be sought in more places in the Mediterranean region.

The next day the weather was somewhat better, i.e. it did not rain. We travelled to Lake Kournas.

On a mountain slope, several tall, flowering Ferula plants grew. This plant is a known host plant for the genus Mallosia, a very beautiful longhorn beetle. We did not see any of these, however, but Ingvar and I each found a specimen of the small longhorn beetle Stenopterus simulatus which is endemic.

Gösta succeeded in knocking down a specimen of the very beautiful jewel beetle Anthaxia deaurata cretica from an elm, which is likewise an endemic species and furthermore newly described that year. Stig managed to find some larvae in elm branches for later emergence. Below a slope we found a fallen plane tree. On this, a number of small jewel beetles came and took flight. These were, among others, Acmaeodera bartoni and Acmaeodera crinita and Acmaeodera quadrizonata. I also found one with black-blue elytra. In the thin bark we found a few specimens of the mere mm-sized Antribid Choragus horni. This species has jumping ability. It is also found at home in Sweden but very rare in a few places.

One of our main goals for our trip was the Omalos plateau where many known collectors such as Bily, Slama, Hotzschuh and Schurmann, among others, have made many fine finds. So we set off there the next day, almost 10 miles. Overcast, cold and rain in the morning. In Sweden we had high summer heat!

Crete is undulating, an understatement. The entire island, except close to the coasts, consists of high mountain ranges. The original vegetation in the form of maquis, Quercus coccifera, Cistus villosus, Pinus halepensis, Cupressus sempervirens var. horizontalis, oak, plane tree, walnut, fig, Judas tree, etc., is only preserved in more difficult-to-access terrain except in the vicinity of villages. Even high up on the mountain slopes, vegetation has been cleared to make room for terraced olive groves. Despite the very large area of olive groves, vegetation had recently been burned off on many mountainsides to expand olive cultivation.

Up on the Omalos plateau, flowering apple trees grew abundantly, and plane trees only grew by watercourses. In an old rotten plane tree we found Dorcus and a Mycetochara species. Fallen branches showed infestation by a Buprestid. In the plane tree on the Omalos plateau, among others, Dr. Lucat has found the very rare jewel beetle Strigopteroides aegyptiacus. We were almost convinced that we had obtained very good emergence material of this gem. To our disappointment, unfortunately only the species Chrysobothris affinis, which is also common with us, has emerged.

From apple stumps and dead apples we could, from the hard wood, chisel out a few specimens of the approximately cm-long spindle-shaped, metallically black with yellow spots Buprestid Ptosima flavoguttata metallescens Bily, an endemic subspecies. In a couple of recently dead apples there were plentiful typical larval galleries of a Ropalopus which later proved to be clavipes, which is the most common Ropalopus species in the Mediterranean region.

The following day was overcast and relatively cold but no rain. The day was suitable for chiselling after wood-dwelling species. We returned to the Omalos plateau near the Samaria gorge. A hill with apple trees and stumps at the edge of the slope was examined. Suddenly Stig shouted, he had managed to chisel out a very beautiful specimen of the rarity Anaglyptus praecellens which is only known from this area. After a day of hard work we managed to obtain around 10 specimens in total. The species is larger and more beautiful than Anaglyptus mysticus, which is not uncommon in southern Sweden. In a couple of thick stumps with partly fresh and living wood we found some large longhorn beetle larvae of Prinobius scutellaris proksi Slama, an endemic subspecies of P. scutellaris. I have now hatched one specimen.

The next day, 10 May, we headed towards Knossos on the main road towards Iraklio, mostly overcast and cool. At a rest stop Gösta found on a white flower a beautiful specimen of the very fine, green-bronze-coloured jewel beetle Aurigena margotana, an endemic species described by Novak.

This was one of the endemic species that ranked highest on our wish list. The biology is unknown, as it is for most Aurigena species. In a branch of cypress Stig found at Vrises a pupa of Buprestis cypressi. In a depression used as a rubbish dump, several thick carob trees grew with plenty of dead branches. These contained a good number of relatively large cerambycid larvae of Trichoferus type. After emergence we obtained the endemic species Trichoferus bergeri. In some flowers Ingvar and Stig found individual specimens of the small beautiful Buprestid Acmaeoderella flavolineata piloselloides (endemic ssp.).

Over the following days we worked mainly in the vicinity of the village of Laki on the road up towards Omalos. In oak forest we found by beating the endemic cerambycid species Callimus angulatus glabrescens, 5-8 mm long, relatively flat, very beautifully metallic-shiny in copper-bronze, and the small Grammoptera auricollis with golden-shiny hairy covering on the pronotum. Plagionotus arcuatus, which is not uncommon in southern Sweden, could be chiselled out from oak branches. It is somewhat different from our species and should probably be considered a subspecies. We also took with us small twigs from oak branches with the transition from dead wood to fresh wood and with feeding marks from a cerambycid.

We hoped to obtain the extremely rare and only on Crete occurring Clytid (Cerambycid) Pseudosphegesthes bergeri. So far, however, these twigs have been completely silent.

One day we travelled via Hora-Sfakion and near S. Petres we found an oak forest with infestation in dead branches of the very beautiful and rare Latipalpis margotana, which is only found on Crete, likewise described by Novak after his wife Margot. I was fortunate enough to find an approximately 10 cm thick vertical standing oak branch about 1 m long. It had a couple of flight holes from Latipalpis. I sawed it down into 3 sections and despite the weight I brought it home to Sweden convinced that it would yield several specimens of this long-sought species. Judge my great surprise when I found three specimens of the Pseudosphegesthes bergeri we had been searching for in the emergence box during the summer. Now we know a little more about that species' biology and shall perhaps not that twigs are the species' most favoured biotope. This is to be of great help when we in Turkey come to search for the closely related Pseudosphegesthes longitarsis. So finally in October one specimen of Latipalpis margotana finally walked on the inside of the emergence box.

On Imvros we found in Cupressus sempervirens stumps pupal chambers of what we then believed was the endemic rarity Anthaxia ariadne. We have managed to hatch several specimens, but it was not the expected species but something equally if not more interesting, namely a very beautiful Buprestid, Lampra (Scintillatrix) cretica Zabransky newly described that year. From Cupressus branches later hatched Isotomus tomentosum ssp. atticum.

Near the village of Prases we found one of the few remaining specimens of the original old broadleaf forest that is still left on the island. They were very old walnut trees. Most were dead or dying with partly fallen bark. We met a Cretan who partly with sign language explained that the trees had been killed with chemicals to make room for olive groves! Under the bark of these trees we found several specimens of Plagionotus detritus, which is almost extinct in Sweden. It exists on Djurgården in Stockholm in the oak crowns near Freskati and perhaps still remains in the lower Dalälven region. It is sad to experience this lack of understanding for necessary nature conservation of these small refugia of the forest that once covered this island. Unfortunately this is not an exception in the Mediterranean region. We should not ourselves be presumptuous either. Economic forces have weighed heavier than the demands of nature conservation. I am thinking especially of the oak and beech forests in southern Sweden which have been felled or suffocated by encroaching spruce forest. Most of our threatened beetle species are precisely bound to old broadleaf forest.

The second week brought warm and sunny weather, finally. We made long daily journeys and many interesting finds. On one occasion we saw from the road some dead pines, Pinus halepensis, with red needles. These stood near a large rubbish dump with rotting oranges and a fenced hill with a couple of marble monuments, partly in disrepair. The hill had plenty of white flowers. Behind this hill were steep slopes to a ravine and on the other side again new mountains.

In the branches of the dead pines we could ascertain infestation by 2 jewel beetles, one smaller and one somewhat larger species. Stig and I sawed down some representative samples. From my pieces I soon got 2 specimens of Anthaxia laticeps navratili Bily. It is a species that has never been collected in the wild but only through emergence from branches of Pinus halepensis. Judge then my surprise when

I found a very beautiful Buprestis species crawling in my breeding box.

It was a male of Buprestis humeralis, a species that is very easy to identify by its brass-coloured pronotum and each elytra with a longitudinal yellow band.

It is a great rarity originally described from Egypt but in recent times has been rediscovered by the buprestid specialist Hans Mihle in a few specimens from Israel and a few specimens from Cyprus.

After a month another specimen, a female, emerged in my breeding box. Stig also obtained a specimen. Had we known about these treasures we would of course have brought much more breeding material with us. In any case, I would not have been able to carry much more. When I got home I weighed my luggage which weighed a full 60 kg. Gösta found a very beautiful and large Anthaxia hungaricus. The rest of us searched in vain but it had become too late for flying jewel beetles so we decided to return the next day. That day turned out to be sunny and very warm, in other words ideal jewel beetle weather. We went down the slope in the sunshine with partly burnt dense and thorny bushes. Suddenly Stig called out; he had spotted a basking Aurigena margotana on a branch. Until then only Gösta had found a specimen and we had all searched every bush with white flowers and moreover beaten coccifera oaks diligently without result. We had practically given up considering that only a few days remained until the journey home.

After this find Stig and I found new energy and worked through the entire slope which resulted in several specimens for both of us.

During the trip we obtained many other species such as Agapanthia cynarae and probski newly described by Holzschuh, several Anthaxia, Acmaeoderella, Agrilus which are still being worked on.

Moreover there is a lot of breeding material that may yield specimens after overwintering.

The Mediterranean region is indeed very well studied by most collectors throughout history from Central Europe but despite this there is enormously much new to discover. Thus I have in recent days from Dr Sama, Italy, received several reprints of papers with new descriptions from Cyprus following his collecting in 1992. Our little group has during our collecting in recent years in Turkey discovered many new species that have been described, even such a large species as a 2.5 cm long dark beetle, a Tenebrionid. I can thus warmly recommend interested coleopterists to travel to the easily accessible Mediterranean region. We can only hope that the political unrest in Turkey can quickly find a solution. Next year it will probably be off to Turkey again where we have found many biotopes that we have not yet had time to work through.

Ingvar,

Ulf &

Stig