Forum Entomologi Italiani

I’m not a buprestidae expert, so better to get your confirmation! The pictures are made without tripod so if you want to see better pictures, let me know!

Thanks

Anthaxia (Anthaxia) discicollis Gory & Laporte, 1839, BUT I dont think it is discicollis discicollis. I would put it to ssp. ssp.kanaanita Obenberger, 1912 , known from Syria, Turkey, Israel - because Cyprus is more connected to these, than Balkan or E Europe. Thats just about distribution, the difference between these I dont know...

I collected the same taxon in Cyprus, about 20 years ago, and I simply identified them as Anthaxia discicollis. Strangely, in the Catalogue by Loebl and Smetana no A. discicollis was listed from Cyprus! Probably it was forgotten, because this species is surely known for this island, where it is common.
These are country listed in Loebl & Smetana:

discicollis discicollis Gory & Laporte, 1839: 25 E: AB AL AR BH BU CR GG GR MC SL TR UK YU A: TM TR
discicollis kanaanita Obenberger, 1912a: 15 A: IS LE SY TR

My opinion is the same od Zdenko, but I don't know very well how to separate discicollis and kanaanita.

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

Hopefully Zdeno may translate the original description, and say to you what characters were indicated by Obenberger to discriminate the taxon.

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Maurizio Bollino

Questo lavoro ce l'ho anch'io, ma chissà perchè non ci ho mai capito niente!

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

Nice Maurizio ! Its very old style czech language which I have a bit difficulty to understand...

These are the differences between them two what Obenberger mentions:
- colour of pronotum - discicollis discicollis - bright red and kanaaita - greenish, goldish
- punctuation of pronotum - disc.kanaaita - fine surface and disc.disc. - the opposite.
He says, that there are transition forms between them two, so probably thats why someone put it to ssp. level

Very very slight differences!

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

Very slight differences! I've several specimens some are more greenish, others blueish..
At least the sp. is known now, Thanks!

blue/green = female/male

+ you should have there A. anatolica as well. They are very similar, just pronotum looks different

Different in shape or color?

colour...

Here the differences.


But it's very easy to identify them in the field. Anthaxia discicollis is usually found on flowers, most of times on yellow flowers, while Anthaxia anatolica lives on Ferula and you never will find it on flowers, but only on it's host plant (usually on the steam, hidden at the base of leaves).

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

Superb, this is of great help!