Israel Insect World

Year 2008 marked (for me) a new begining with Scaraboid beetles. Between March and June we visit some good locations and had some very nice suprises. These trips were done mainly with Guido Sabatinelli and some night collecting with Eylon Orbach as well.  After Avihai Benyamini found a "strange" Aethiessa, it was later on ID as Protaetia trojana. An illusive specie which was not seen in Israel for dozens of years. In addition Eylon Orbach found another population on Golan Hights.

Now the locality of two populations is known and after finding in Tel-Aviv collection 14 additional specimens (which were ID as Aethiessa in the past) we know about few other localities as well. Israel specimens have  nice variety of colors and forms (from green to blue).

In 2009 we should pay a visit to the older localities (from which the specimens in Tel-Aviv collection were collected at in the 1940'. These include Jerusalem mountains and Western and Easter Upper Galillee. 

Other Cetoniinae in Israel were under investigation and eventually by next year the knowledge about Israeli Cetoniinae will be more complete and accurate than ever (and will be published in some papers along with Guido Sabatinelli and Pierre Tauzin.

This is a good place to thank you both for amazing cooporation and much more than that.

Other species that were on focus: Oxythyrea sps, P.judith, Tropinoa sps.

Next year the goals are to find more about the very rare species that were collected before only once or twice to gain more understanding regards their distribution in Israel and everything else possible.

The Glaphyridae family got a very good treatment this year. Guido Sabatinelli and Marco Uliana started an important and interesting work on these small colored flower scarabs and I gladly joined in the effort. There were good findings about this family in Israel and Levant area in general and surely more to come.

Last, Guido Sabatinelli's website is online http://www.glaphyridae.com/ and it is the most important site for the Scarab beetles in the area. Very rich with taxonomic work, photos and all other aspects of scarab beetles of the Levant.

Year 2008 was also good for other species not mentioned here and this will be updated in the future along with next year other news and trips.

Three months to go to the new 2009 collecting season.. Happy new year to all of us.