Saproxylic insects were collected during fifteen expeditions to the Republic of Kareliain summers 1991-94. A total of 63 species (48 beetles, 15 others) included in the Finnish red data book are reported. Fourteen species of Coleoptera and Aradus ribauti Wagner are reported as new for Karelia. Notes on the biology of e.g. Hylochares cruentatus (Gyllenhal), Rhizophagus puncticollis Sahlberg, Cis fissicomis Mellié, Sulcacis bidentulus (Rosenhauer) and Leptura thoracica Creutzer are given. The number of threatened species found is striking considering the short period of time spent collecting in the field. We ascribe this to the management history of forests in Karelia, especially to the large amount of decaying wood in managed forests even. The forests in Karelia will be of crucial importance in preserving biodiversity and the last viable populations of numerous species that have disappeared in other parts of Fennoscandia.
The buprestid Melanophila formaneki (Jakobson) (= Phaenops aerea Formanek) is reported for the first time from Finland. The beetles (5 adults and 32 larvae) were reared from three stems of recently dead approx. 4-m-high Scots pines (Pinus sylvestris L.). The pines had been cut in a heavily polluted industrial arca at Harjavalta, southwestern Finland, in 1989. A specimen collected in 1929 from Sakkola, on the Karelian Isthmus, was redetermined in museum material. M.formaneki is compared with M. cyanea, and the la¡va is described.
From1989 on Cynaeus opacus Champion has been found in waste heaps and similar localities in southern Finland together with other synanthropic beetles. Cynaeus is an American genus spreading with man; another species, C. angustus (LeConte), has recently been recorded from Sweden.
New records of Clambus nigrellus Reitter are presented. All Finnish specimens have been found along small brooks and this is most probably the main habitat for the species. Poor knowledge of the fauna of this habitat and difficulties in species identification indicate that C. nigrellus in Finland is an overlooked species rather than an expanding species.
In Finland two weevil species, Ceutorhynchus pallidicornis and C. larvatus, have Pulmonaria obscura as their host plant. Data on the occurrence of both species are presented and their extremely poorly-known biology is commented upon. Both species are rare but seem to be overlooked in Finland because of their secretive habits.
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