Phytobaenus amabilis subsp. amabilis R. F. Sahlberg 1834

Phytobaenus amabilis amabilis R.F. Sahlberg, 1834 Phytobaenus amabilis amabilis R.F. Sahlberg, 1834: Schillhammer 1993: 328; Nardi 2007: 27; Nardi 2008: 457; Yuan et al. 2015: 19; Jung 2016: 38; Nardi 2020: 629. Phytobaenus amabilis Sahlb., 1834: Schmidl & Bussler 2004: 213. Phytobaenus amabilis F. Sahlberg, 1834: Alekseev & Bukejs 2010: 168. Phytobaenus amabilis R.F. Sahlberg, 1834: Chumak et al. 2015: 10; Telnov et al. 2016: 114; Laugsand & Staverløkk 2020: 71; Sanchez & Chittaro 2022: 104. Phytobaenus amabilis amabilis Sahlberg, 1834: Zúber 2022: 145. Phytobaenus amabilis Sahlberg, 1834: Lekoveckaitë et al. 2023: 6. Material examined. East Azarbaijan province, Khomarloo, 2 exx., June 2012, P. Farhadi leg. General distribution. Austria (Schillhammer 1993), Byelorussia, China, Croatia, Czech Republic, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Hungary, Italy, Japan, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Romania, Russia (Central European Territory, East Siberia, Far East, North European Territory), Slovakia, Sweden, Taiwan, Ukraine (Nardi 2020), Iran (this study), Norway (Laugsand & Staverløkk 2020), South Korea (Jung 2016). Notes. The above record from Austria was overlooked by Nardi (2008, 2020) and in “Fauna Europaea” (Audisio et al. 2015). Jung (2016) lists this species as coming from “ China (Nei Mongoi)” but, in reality, refers to “NE China ” (Nardi 2008, 2020). Despite its wide distribution, this species is found only very rarely, and usually in isolated individuals (Sanchez & Chittaro 2022). The above individuals come from the forests of northwestern Iran (near the Azerbaijan boundary), where them have been collected on Acer hyrcanum (Sapindaceae). The biology of this species is almost unknown. Adults are collected by sweeping and beating bushes and trees: Acer, Alnus, Carpinus, Corylus, Crataegus, Fraxinus, Hedera, Populus, Prunus, Salix, and Tilia (cf. Sanchez & Chittaro 2022; Zúber 2022). In Norway, this species was collected in a forest edge, on small bushes of Tilia cordata, Quercus robur and Corylus avellana (Laugsand & Staverløkk 2020); in Sweden it seems extinct, but it has been recorded also on timber imported from Russia; in Finland, it was collected (manually and by window-traps) on Populus sp. and Betula sp. (cf. Laugsand & Staverløkk 2020); in Baltic Russia, it was collected using a pitfall trap in the fork of a living old lime-tree (Tilia sp.), three meters above ground level (Alekseev & Bukejs 2010); in Latvia, it was collected by free-standing flight interception traps, in old Populus tremula -Picea abies mixed forests (Telnov et al. 2016); in Lithuania, it was collected in emergence traps fixed to horizontal trunks of Populus tremula and Betula sp. in the secondary stage of decay (Lekoveckaitë et al. 2023); in Germany Phytobaenus amabilis amabilis is listed among the relict saproxylic species of primary forests (cf. Sanchez & Chittaro 2022); in southern Italy a single specimen, was collected with a Malaise trap equipped with a container half filled with 70% ethanol in a mature beech (Fagus sylvatica) (Fagaceae) forest, 110 years old (Nardi 2007), also in Ukraine this species was trapped in a primeval beech forest (Chumak et al. 2015), while at Taiwan it was collected by sweeping net and also at UV light (Yuan et al. 2015). The larvae, still unknown, are, very probably, saproxylophagous (Schmidl & Bussler 2004; Laugsand & Staverløkk 2020; Sanchez & Chittaro 2022), and it seems that the species of fungus colonizing the wood, as well as other abiotic and biotic factors, are more decisive in explaining the presence of this beetle than the species of the tree (cf. Sanchez & Chittaro 2022).