The Danacea of Turkey: a contribution to their knowledge (Coleoptera, Cleroidea, Dasytidae)

Abstract

Genus Danacea, in turkey, currently include 36 species (plus 4 that are considered uncertain). Out of them, 5 are here described as new: D. anemoura, D. dumifera, D. mersini, D. phrygia and D. tekirdagi. two changes of status and four new synonymies are proposed: D. reitteri Prochazka, 1894, previously considered a synonym of D. marginata (Küster, 1851) has been re-established as a good species; D. zolotarewi, previously considered subspecies of D. nigritarsis (Küster, 1850) has been raised to good species; D. conicicollis Schilsky, 1897 and D. tauricola Pic, 1904 = D. cavifrons Pic, 1895; D. valida Heyden, 1878 = D. olivacea baudi, 1873; D. holtzi Pic, 1904 = D. sequensi reitter, 1901. A determination key is also proposed, which includes all the 36 species known, or reported, to live in turkey. All these species have been described and discussed except 9 which, also present in the balkans, have been recently included in a previous paper (Liberti 2009). Drawings of all median lobes, several tegmens and other dissected parts have been added, together with several photographs of the whole insect. Five names could not be reliably associated with a known species and remained uncertain; they have been separately listed and discussed. this paper cannot be considered a revision (although nearly all types have been retrieved and studied), rather a contribution to the knowledge of the turkish Danacea: indeed many problems, both taxonomic and distributional, have not been satisfactorily solved due to the amounts of materials available for study, which in several instances resulted to be insufficient.