Insect biodiversity of the Socotra Archipelago – underlined and counted

Abstract

<jats:title>Abstract</jats:title> <jats:p>Altogether, 1,564 species taxa (identified at least to the genus level) from 25 orders of Hexapoda have been recorded from the Socotra Archipelago to date. In addition, members of Diplura and Ephemeroptera are known from the archipelago as well, but they have not been identified so far. The most speciose order in Socotra are beetles (Coleoptera) with 540 species. The total number of endemic taxa described from the archipelago is 662 species, which represents 42% of all known species. The vast majority of species is known from the main Socotra Island (1,520 species, 635 endemic taxa). The diversity of insects in Socotra is briefly commented on and compared with the nearest archipelago – the Seychelles.</jats:p>

The first survey of the beetles (Coleoptera) of the Farasan Archipelago of the southern Red Sea, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia

“…Faunistic data are scarce for the beetles from the Red Sea islands and this makes the comparisons with these islands difficult. Although the Socotra Islands are more distant (1,357 km) in the Indian Ocean, and much larger (3,800 km 2 ), they are the only nearest islands for comparison in which significant progress has been made in entomological studies over the last thirty years ( Bezděk and Hájek 2017 ). The fauna of Socotra comprises 645 beetle species ( Hájek and Bezděk 2019 ), ca.…”

Taxonomic catalogue of the family Ochteridae with description of Ochterus papaceki sp. nov. from Socotra Island and Tanzania (Hemiptera: Heteroptera)

“…For further information on results of the Czech expeditions see e.g. HÁJEK & BEZDĚK (2012, 2017, BEZDĚK & HÁJEK (2017), KMENT et al (2017) or BIONDI et al (2019. For brief description of the natural conditions of Socotra see BATELKA (2012).…”

Unravelling the taxonomic assessment of an interesting new species from Socotra Island: Blepharidina socotrana sp. nov. (Coleoptera: Chrysomelidae)

“…data;BIONDI 2017;BIONDI & D'ALESSANDRO 2010a,b, 2012, 2013a,b, 2015, 2017a,b, 2018BIONDI et al 2017;D'ALESSANDRO & BIONDI 2018;D'ALESSANDRO et al 2014D'ALESSANDRO et al , 2018aDÖBERL 2010). As for Socotra Archipelago, notwithstanding the remarkable increase in the knowledge of the invertebrate biota in the last 20 years (HÁJEK & BEZDĚK 2012, 2017, it seems that the collecting effort to evaluate the actual insect diversity in this area has been insuffi cient (HÁJEK & BEZDĚK 2017). Based on most of the present data, the biota of Socotra Archipelago is composed mainly of Afrotropical elements, generally shared with Somali or Ethiopian areas, and, to a lesser extent, Palaearctic elements (BATELKA & BO-LOGNA 2014, MALENOVSKÝ & BURCKHARDT 2014, BIONDI & D'ALESSANDRO 2017b), and shows a remarkable endemism rate found at both species and genus level (BATELKA 2012, MALENOVSKÝ & BURCKHARDT 2014, BEZDĚK & HÁJEK 2017.…”

“…As for Socotra Archipelago, notwithstanding the remarkable increase in the knowledge of the invertebrate biota in the last 20 years (HÁJEK & BEZDĚK 2012, 2017, it seems that the collecting effort to evaluate the actual insect diversity in this area has been insuffi cient (HÁJEK & BEZDĚK 2017). Based on most of the present data, the biota of Socotra Archipelago is composed mainly of Afrotropical elements, generally shared with Somali or Ethiopian areas, and, to a lesser extent, Palaearctic elements (BATELKA & BO-LOGNA 2014, MALENOVSKÝ & BURCKHARDT 2014, BIONDI & D'ALESSANDRO 2017b), and shows a remarkable endemism rate found at both species and genus level (BATELKA 2012, MALENOVSKÝ & BURCKHARDT 2014, BEZDĚK & HÁJEK 2017. However, based on an analysis referring to the Coleoptera, HÁJEK & BEZDĚK (2019) report that the genera occurring in Socotra Archipelago are composed of about 50% of elements of Palaearctic origin and 50% of African origin.…”