The Leiodidae (Coleoptera) of Atlantic Canada: new records, faunal composition, and zoogeography
Author
Majka, Christopher
Nova Scotia Museum, Halifax, NS, Canada
Author
Langor, David
Natural Resources Canada, Edmonton, Canada
text
ZooKeys
2008
2008-09-04
2
2
357
402
journal article
10.3897/zookeys.2.56
719fd3b2-e591-4d51-b512-88e1fdeac745
1313–2970
576397
Agathidium hatchi
Wheeler, 1977
Agathidium hatchi
was reported by
Miller and Wheeler (2005)
from a series of female specimens collected in northwestern
Oregon
and a single male specimen apparently collected in Frederickton (sic),
New Brunswick
(
20.III.1961
, R.C. Clark,
Utah State
University).
Miller and Wheeler (2005: 21)
wrote, that “The distribution of the species is unusual in that specimens are known from
Oregon
and
New Brunswick
, but from nowhere in between. The
Oregon
specimens (including the
type
) are females and the
New Brunswick
specimen is a male. Therefore, there is some possibility the specimens represent different species ...,” and “It is also possible that the
New Brunswick
specimen is mislabeled.”
The preponderance of evidence indicates that the record from
New Brunswick
is erroneous and resulted from a mislabeled specimen. Several reasons indicate this:
a) for most of his career R.C. Clark worked on control of balsam wooly adelgid [
Adelges piceae
(Ratzeburg)
] and he never conducted research on
Coleoptera
(W. Varty, pers. comm.);
b) the weather conditions on 20 March, 1961 Fredericton were fully winter-like. Temperatures ranged from -12.8°C (low) to -2.2°C (high) and there was
64 cm
of snow on the ground (
National Climate Archive 2007
), highly improbable circumstances in which to find a slime mold beetle such as
Agathidium
;
c) if R.C. Clark (who worked for the Canadian Forestry Service) had collected any
Agathidium
specimens incidentally as part of his research, some specimens would have been deposited in the Atlantic Forestry Centre research collection in Fredericton. There are no such specimens in the collection (G. Smith and J. Sweeney, pers. comm.);
d)
R.C. Clark
lived in Fredericton for over three decades and it is highly unlikely that he would misspell the name of the capital city of
New Brunswick
as “Frederickton”;
e) in the 1960s there were no scientific exchanges or research programs between Atlantic Forestry Centre and
Utah State
University (W. Varty, pers. comm.).
Thus, there is no evidence that would indicate that this specimen was actually collected in
New Brunswick
. Accordingly, we remove this species form the
New Brunswick
faunal list.