Early studies on Cuban weevils and their contribution to modern research in beetle evolution and island biogeography

The foundations for present knowledge of the Cuban weevil fauna (Coleoptera, Curculionoidea) were laid between the 1820s and 1870s. We review the relevant entomological activities of that time, their aftermaths and the challenges for present-day research. The bulk of the early specimens came from two collectors, both Germans. The first, Maximilian Müller, sold his Cuban beetles to the Zoological Museum Berlin in 1828, and species with large series were dispersed subsequently to many contemporary collectors. Unawareness of their common origin and still circulating manuscript names attached during previous studies led to numerous multiple descriptions and synonymy. The second important collector, Johannes Gundlach, was a field biologist with taxidermic skills and who initially also provided specimens to coleopterists and institutions that had funded his journey to America. Together with Felipe Poey, a Cuban naturalist, he intensified his surveys in the 1850s and supplied primarily Auguste Chevrolat and Édouard Guérin-Méneville, two French coleopterists, and Friedrich Riehl, a dedicated and today nearly forgotten private beetle collector in Hesse-Kassel, Germany. Eduard Suffrian, another German coleopterist, described 103 Cuban weevils from these resources, many of them still unidentified. The objective of this paper is to provide guidance to researchers interested in these historical events and working with the Cuban fauna.