Author Description

This new series provides brief, concise identification guides to all European Coleoptera, and is intended both for professional and amateur entomologists. Each volume will treat a systematic unit comprising about 150-500 species. This will usually mean a family or subfamily, but it can also be a single large genus, or a group of smaller families. Small and systematically unrelated groups may also be collected in one volume. The volumes will be published as the manuscripts become available and not in a systematical order. The geographical area covered will include Europe west of the former USSR, and also includes Estonia, Lithuania, and Latvia. The authors may also include one or more of the adjacent parts of the western Palaearctic Region, i.e.: Macaronesia, North Africa (Maghreb countries), Cyprus, Asia Minos, Lebanon, Israel, the European part of Russia, Ukraine, Belorussia, as well as the Transcaucasian area (Georgia, Armenia, and Azerbaidzjan). Each volume is well illustrated. Where it is useful for the identification, species will be shown in color, either by photographs or by water colors. Sexual dimorphism and extensive polymorphism may also be illustrated. Each volume also includes line drawing illustrations or black and white photographs of male and female genitalia, as well as other morphological details necessary for identification. Each species is treated using the following format: full name; original reference to all available nominal names (valid name and synonyms); differential diagnosis based on external features, including detail figures where necessary; genitalia of male and female of all species; arrows may show diagnostic features; a differential diagnosis is provided when useful; and distribution in short summary form of the total distribution, also outside the area treated. The distribution in Europe will be presented in a table indicating the presence in each of the European national states as well as the major Mediterranean Islands Corsica,