Forum Entomologi Italiani

Hi,

photographed this Anthaxia in north-east of Greece (Thracia), near Mikro Derio, 19.may.2010, size around 9-10mm.
can be IDed from photo?

Grazie,
cosmln

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

I think this is Anthaxia (Cratomerus) hungarica, but I don't know if there are another species in Greece

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Riccardo Poloni
La dignità degli elementi
la libertà della poesia,
al di là dei tradimenti degli uomini
è magia, è magia, è magia...
Negrita, Rotolando verso sud

is not hungarica or sponsa, collected both of them (both are much larger and look different).

cosmln

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

Potrebbe essre una femmina di Anthaxia (Cratomerus) eugeniae ma è molto difficile esserne certi da una foto; pertanto la mia ipotesi è unicamente indicativa.

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Francesco Izzillo

if remember correctly, collected several specimens with that occasion, and when will glues this will put some more photos and maybe will find also a male (and will prepare genitalia).

cosmln

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

Dovrebbe essere una eugeniae, ma non me la sento di escludere la sponsa, solo dalla foto. Potrebbe servire un particolare della testa-protorace-antenne.

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

Hi Cosmin,
it is a rule for me to confirm identification only after examination under a microscope, but from this pictures I would say that it is a nice female of Anthaxia (Cratomerus) sponsa Kiesenwetter, 1857, though it also resembles a female of Anthaxia (Cratomerus) diadema Fisher von Waldheim, 1824, (which should also be present in that area), but in this latter the space between the pronotal black bands is always much narrower than in sponsa, and the laterobasal pronotal depressions are deeper and more sharply defined. If you collected also males, then it shouldn't be too difficult, because males of diadema have swallen femurs, like in hungarica.

I have hungarica and diadema too. I just got only one pair of diadema. But my female of diadema has the same color like the male, just very light golden shimmer at the side of the pronotum. I have 2 females of sponsa, no male and both of them have dark blue elytrae, like the females of hungarica. The sponsa specimens were determined by Dr. S. Bily, so I have no doubts. I just want to see more females of sponsa, because I still don't know this species too well.

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Ciao
Adrian

Hallo Cosmin,
I am still curios about this specimen. In the previous answer I had indicated as possible sponsa and diadema, but now that I have checked my material I think the following:
It cannot be hungarica, because as we can see, in this specimen the prosternum is green while in hungarica the ventral side is thoroughly bright red; also in diadema (reddish/greenish ventral side) and in scorzonerae (green underside) the prosternum is of the same color as the rest of the underside; so what we have left from that area is the more common sponsa, and the sporadic eugeniae; I think that most likely this is a female of sponsa, but I would like to see the males you caught in the same spot, if you can.