Forum Entomologi Italiani

Hi,

Found this big cetoniid (23-24 mm) on flowers of some twistle at the Black Sea shore in Bulgaria, 29.june.2009 (43.383977/28.470447), leg. Cosmin O. Manci.

For me this looks very strange, the knees are not white, the genitalia is like cuprea.
A similar specimen can be seen in a photo published in Marek Bunalski (1999) Die Blatthornkafer Mitteleuropas – Coleoptera Scarabaeoidea, noted as ssp. obscura (Andersch 1797). But there the white knees are visible.

If needed will do more photos, just let me know what.

Heeeelp and thanks,
cosmln

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Cosmin-Ovidiu Manci
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cosmln's place - my blog
just insects
Dragonflies of Romania

Ciao Cosmin ,
per me è una potosia fieberi , non sono specialista , ma così a occhio mi sembra proprio una potosia fieberi

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merlino

made another photo showing the genitalia (dorsal view) and also the knee.
from what I see the paramer are covering one to each other (>>>> P.cuprea in this part of the world), and there is not white on knee (>>>> P.fieberi).

pls, heeeeeeeeeeeelp

cosmln

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Cosmin-Ovidiu Manci
**********************
cosmln's place - my blog
just insects
Dragonflies of Romania

I think it could be Protaetia (Netocia) cuprea obscura (Andersch 1797)

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Maurizio Gigli
http://utenti.romascuola.net/bups
http://bup.xoom.it/

In that part of the world, with very similar paramera, also P. cuprina is expected to occurr, however also this species should be identified by white spot on knees.
I do agree with Maurizio: my guess is P. cuprea obscura

thanks to both of you, so the character white spot on knees is not perfect.

cosmln

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Cosmin-Ovidiu Manci
**********************
cosmln's place - my blog
just insects
Dragonflies of Romania

The white spot is common to cuprina and fieberi, but the two species can be easily recognised by the paramera shape

white spot? from what I read in keys (for ex. Baraud) for fieberi the white spot knee is missing, but on cuprina is nothing write about knee there. Also I don't think cuprina will be found on Bulgaria (from Baraud, 1992 about cuprina "Répartition: Arménie. Géorgie. la répanition se superpose à cel le de N. caucasica (Kol.).")

cosmln

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Cosmin-Ovidiu Manci
**********************
cosmln's place - my blog
just insects
Dragonflies of Romania

What a confusion... my mistakes!

I wanted to say that the absence of white spotes on the knees is common to two species, fieberi and [i]cuprea [/i]. In P. cuprea some subspecies miss the the white knee, other usuallyhave it (see Baraud, first dichotomy in key to P. cuprea subspecies, p. 810). P. cuprea obscura should have that spot, but it may be absent, while it is not said that P. cuprina may miss it.
Actually, I would not bet on the fact that this character may not be variable in P. cuprina , however this is not told in Baraud, so my guess is P. cuprea.

Baraud's key lead to P. cuprina (couplet 20) taking option 2 "Knee with a white spot" on couple 18. Also, in couplet 20 the distribution of P. cuprina is said: "Caucase, Bulgarie, Turquie".
Presence in Eastern Europe is also confirmed in the Catalogue Paleactic.

now I see what you say... is interesting because if you go to see the species text there is very different, about distribution.
Thanks Marco for all your help... will come also with a melolonthid in an hour or so

cosmln

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Cosmin-Ovidiu Manci
**********************
cosmln's place - my blog
just insects
Dragonflies of Romania

Protaetia (Potosia) fieberi (Kraatz, 1880) has the ventral part, legs and mesepimera cooper too, not violet. I have found a lot of P. cuprea cuprina and P. fieberi in the south-eastern Romania. The waxen white spot on the knees can be pure and simple erased for some reason to the old specimens. In the dorsal view they apparently were belonging to the same species. But the purple - violet shine of the ventral part is differentiating the cuprea. I saw violet legs and mesepimera, so it is Protaetia (Potosia) cuprea ssp. obscura (Andersch, 1797)

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Ciao
Adrian