Book Review

Abstract

The Staphylinidae (Rove Beetles) of Britain and Ireland. Parts 7 and 8: Oxyporinae, Steninae, Euaesthetinae, Pseudopsinae, Paederinae, Staphylininae (Handbooks for the Identification of British Insects Volume 12) by Derek A. Lott and Roy Anderson . 2011 . Royal Entomological Society, St. Albans, U.K. 340 pp . with line drawings and colour photo plates . ISBN 9780901546920 , paperback, £49. Staphylinidae are loved by many coleopterists and shunned by at least as many, especially beginners, both because of their immense diversity and the necessity to look at details for identification. It is in fact THE beetle family with most described species. Freude et al. (1964, 1974, updated by Assing & Schülke, 2012) are the long-time standard handbooks for determining Staphylinidae in Central Europe. For the focus area of this handbook (the British Isles, but not the Channel Islands) this was still needed. Tottenham (1954) started work on a series of staphylinid handbooks, but only the first of three intended sections was published. In 2009 work began on updating and hopefully completing this project, incorporating the latest developments in taxonomy and making workable keys available. The first part on the Oxyteline group (Lott, 2009) set the new design and structural standard for the new mini-series. The present book starts out with an abstract (containing an irritating mistake of ‘five’ subfamilies and then naming six, unfortunately reproduced by many booksellers), acknowledgements and an introductory part. This is a slightly updated and adjusted version of the 2009 introductory part, containing, for example, general introduction, morphology, biology, collection and preservation, a short morphological glossary, the newest taxonomic state and an overview of the structure of this huge family (a kind of publishing plan). It becomes apparent that the book at hand deals with all subfamilies of the Staphylinine group, but unfortunately excludes the newly added Scydmaeninae. This subfamily of only 32 species in the area will thus either make it into a micro-handbook or be treated together with subfamilies of other affiliations. This is followed by the subfamily key from 2009 (slightly updated) and an extremely useful checklist, where more ranks (e.g. subtribes) as well as synonyms to genera and species are added, disentangling the flood of names somewhat. The subfamilies are then dealt with in due order, starting with a compilation of general facts: characters for easy recognition, natural history, distribution and species numbers, both worldwide and for the focus area (unfortunately, the authors didn't get their numbers for Staphylininae right: 185, not 181 or 184). A key to genera is then presented, treating these genera one by one with a similar fact sheet, a species key and very good species accounts. All keys are accompanied with numerous line drawings in just the right place to illustrate characters referred to in the key, with the nice side effect that there is left space between the alternatives for your own notes (a positive surprise in times of restricted publishing space). Species accounts are separated from the key (in contrast to Käfer Mitteleuropas), so that a lot of information can be provided: a short description, a very useful section on similar species, habitat and distribution on the British Isles, and, where possible, notes on biology. This is an invaluable resource for collectors, monitoring biologists and anybody who is just interested. Illustrations of special body parts are also arranged in plates for easy and quick comparison between species. Although the drawings of external characters are usually of good quality and reasonably detailed, many of the drawings of aedeagi suffer from severe simplification and appear outright sketchy, a few even on the verge of [being] useless (especially where the lateral view is not provided). Spermatheca, even where possible to use, are not depicted at all. The beautiful plates of colour habitus photographs (190 spp, quite a good chunk of the 328 species covered in all) at the end of the book compensate a bit for this, at least aesthetically. All in all, this handbook is a valuable and much-needed source for determining the Staphylinidae of the British Isles. As there is this huge diversity in all respects, the group is very rewarding for everybody, from the amateur collector to the hardened professional systematist. The volume (and the whole mini-series) will hopefully help encourage those faint-of-heart coleopterists around the British Isles to get over their reluctance and start determining staphylinids, discover that they are not as bad, and maybe do some more work on them. Andrea M. Schomann 1