Taxonomy, Distribution and Habitat of the Giant <i>Trechus</i> Beetles Endemic to Mt. Choke, Ethiopia (Coleoptera: Carabidae)
2024
Joachim Schmidt | Yeshitla Merene
The Holarctic ground beetle genus <i>Trechus</i> Clairville, 1806, is highly diverse in the Ethiopian highlands, both in terms of species numbers and morphology. Particularly noteworthy are the extraordinarily large species of the subgenus <i>Abyssinotus</i> Quéinnec and Ollivier, 2021, with a body length up to 8.5 mm, that occur on Mt. Choke in northern Ethiopia. Recent, intensive field work on Mt. Choke resulted in a significantly large number of specimens that are the basis for our taxonomic revision of the species related to the giant species, <i>T. dimorphicus</i> Pawłowski, 2001 and <i>T. gigas</i> Pawłowski, 2001. We describe three new species and one new subspecies and discuss a likely interspecific hybrid that combines morphological character states of representatives of the <i>dimorphicus</i> and <i>gigas</i> subgroups of <i>Abyssinotus</i>. An iconography of males and females as well as photographs of the aedeagi of all the considered species are presented. The distributions of the species are detailed and knowledge of the species-specific habitat preferences is summarized. Based on the distributions and habitat specificity, a threat assessment based on the current land use pattern at Mt. Choke is provided.
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