FNZ 3 - Anthribidae (Insecta: Coleoptera) - Introduction
Holloway, BA 1982. Anthribidae (Insecta: Coleoptera). Fauna of New Zealand 3, 272 pages.
(
ISSN 0111-5383 (print),
;
no.
03.
ISBN 0-477-06703-4 (print),
).
Published 23 Dec 1982
ZooBank: http://zoobank.org/References/AC1DC576-5021-40DE-9BD7-0F7C591C6521
Introduction
The Anthribidae (fungus weevils) are a family of beetles belonging to the superfamily Curculionoidea (weevils and their relatives). The family comprises almost 3000 species (Morimoto 1978), distributed worldwide but most strongly represented in the tropics and subtropics. The earliest record of an anthribid in New Zealand is that of White (1846), who described Anthribus (= Cacephatus) incertus From a single specimen found at Port Nicholson in the early 1840s. A second species, Anthribus (= Phymatus) phymatodes, was described by Redtenbacher (1868) from a specimen collected by Hochstetter in 1859.
Sharp (1873, 1876, 1886) described 24 new species, and in his 1876 paper remarked that the new species and those already described showed such a range of difference in their structural characters that they would have to be placed in a number of genera, most of which would be new. However, Sharp felt unable to deal with the generic limits "in anything like a satisfactory manner", and simply decided to apply the generic name Anthribus to each of his new species. It is a comment on Sharp's perception that the 15 new species he described in 1876 are distributed among 12 genera in the present revision.
Pascoe (1876) described Araecerus (= Liromus) pardalis from New Zealand, erroneously believing it to be the same as an anthribid that he had seen from Ceylon. Fifty-three new species names and two new 'varieties', a category with no status in insect taxonomy today, were added to the list of New Zealand Anthribidae by Major Thomas Broun (1880, 1881, 1893, 1895, 1909, 1910, 1911, 1913, 1914a, b, 1921a, b), an enthusiastic coleopterist whose prolific erection of species based mainly on single specimens has led to many synonyms being declared subsequently. Broun also erected four new anthribid genera, although mostly he followed Sharp's example and placed his new species in Anthribus.
Towards the end of the nineteenth century T. W. Kirk (1895) reported that the Australian anthribid Doticus (= Araecerus) palmaris had become established in Wellington Province. At the beginning of the present century there was some confusion among European coleopterists about the limits of the genera Anthribus and Brachytarsus, and Bovie (1906) transferred to Brachytarsus all but two of the New Zealand species formerly placed for convenience in Anthribus. A. brouni and A. sharpi he transferred to Plintheria, presumably because Jordan (1894) had suggested that this was the most suitable genus for them at that time. Bovie's arrangement of New Zealand species was followed by Wolfrum (1929) in the Junk Catalogue of Anthribidae except that brouni and sharpi were listed in both Plintheria and Brachytarsus. Wolfrum recorded 85 endemic New Zealand species in 10 genera. Seven of the genera he placed in Pleurocerinae (= Anthribinae), two in Anocerinae (= Choraginae), and the anthribine genus Xenanthribus he incorrectly associated with Urodon (= Bruchela) in Urodoninae (= Bruchelinae). In a supplement to the Catalogue Wolfrum (1953) transferred the Urodoninae, including Xenanthribus, to Bruchelidae.
Since Broun's time very few new names have been added to the list of New Zealand anthribids. Anthribus (= Cacephatus) aucklandicus was described by Brookes (1951) from a specimen collected on the Auckland Islands in 1943. Wolfrum (1959) reported the occurrence in New Zealand of the Australian grass stem anthribid, Euciodes suturalis, from a specimen collected at Rotorua (misspelt "Rotorus") in 1956, but subsequently the species was found to have been established in Hastings since 1924 (Kuschel 1972). Owing to the mislabelling of material collected in Fiji by G. Frey, Wolfrum (1959) inadvertently recorded two Fijian species of Araecerus and two supposedly new species, Plesiobasis externa and Proscopis liber, from New Zealand. Holloway (1970) erected the genus Lichenobius for two flightless species associated with lichens, and transferred to Cacephatus five species originally placed in Anthribus (Holloway 1971). Larvae of some southern species have been described by May (1971, 1981).
The present revision, based on examination of almost 8500 specimens, including type material of most of the available names, recognises 2 adventive and 58 endemic species of Anthribidae in New Zealand. The endemic species, of which 13 are new, belong in 26 genera. Eighteen of the genera are new. Although not established in New Zealand, the cosmopolitan species Araecerus fasciculatus is also included in this revision because of its frequent interception in consignments of imported dried plant products.
With the exception of several Northern Hemisphere species whose larvae feed on females and eggs of certain scale insects (Arnett 1963, Chao 1976), anthribids are phytophagous both as larvae and as adults. A few species develop inside mummified fruits and in lichens, but the larvae of most live inside dying branches and stems of angiosperms and gymnosperms. Although direct evidence is lacking at present, it looks as if the larvae depend on plant-parasitic fungi such as Xylariaceae to convert the host tissue into a form that they can assimilate. Adults of a few New Zealand species have been found to feed on lichen tissue, but most are fungal feeders, ingesting fructifications and hyphae that grow on or near the surface of stems, branches, or leaves of higher plants. The fungal material they eat sometimes comes from rusts, but more commonly it originates from Ascomycetes, particularly the Xylariaceae which attack plants of low vitality. Very few species, either as adults or larvae, have formed an association which involves the saprophytic fungi that are characteristic of rotting logs and forest-floor litter. Even species with atrophied wings tend to remain arboreal as both adults and larvae, and often show some degree of host-plant specificity.
The New Zealand anthribid, Sharpius brouni, has been very successful in adapting to the modified environment of suburban gardens, but most of the other endemic species do not occur outside of relatively undisturbed natural habitats. They are hardly ever attracted to their host plants when these are growing in gardens or parks. A few species are able to develop in introduced plants, but this usually happens only when the exotics are intermingled with native vegetation.