Fauna Europaea: Coleoptera 2 (excl. series Elateriformia, Scarabaeiformia, Staphyliniformia and superfamily Curculionoidea)

• Main Authors: Paolo Audisio, Miguel-Angel Alonso Zarazaga, Adam Slipinski, Anders Nilsson, Josef Jelínek, Augusto Taglianti, Federica Turco, Carlos Otero, Claudio Canepari, David Kral, Gianfranco Liberti, Gianfranco Sama, Gianluca Nardi, Ivan Löbl, Jan Horak, Jiri Kolibac, Jirí Háva, Maciej Sapiejewski, Manfred Jäch, Marco Bologna, Maurizio Biondi, Nikolai Nikitsky, Paolo Mazzoldi, Petr Zahradnik, Piotr Wegrzynowicz, Robert Constantin, Roland Gerstmeier, Rustem Zhantiev, Simone Fattorini, Wioletta Tomaszewska, Wolfgang Rücker, Xavier Vazquez-Albalate, Fabio Cassola, Fernando Angelini, Colin Johnson, Wolfgang Schawaller, Renato Regalin, Cosimo Baviera, Saverio Rocchi, Fabio Cianferoni, Ron Beenen, Michael Schmitt, David Sassi, Horst Kippenberg, Marcello Zampetti, Marco Trizzino, Stefano Chiari, Giuseppe Maria Carpaneto, Simone Sabatelli, Yde de Jong
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Pensoft Publishers 2015-04-01
• Series: Biodiversity Data Journal
• Subjects: Biodiversity Informatics; Coleoptera; Fauna Europaea; Taxonomic indexing.
• Online Access: http://bdj.pensoft.net/lib/ajax_srv/article_elements_srv.php?action=download_pdf&item_id=4750

Fauna Europaea provides a public web-service with an index of scientific names (including synonyms) of all living European land and freshwater animals, their geographical distribution at country level (up to the Urals, excluding the Caucasus region), and some additional information. The Fauna Europaea project covers about 230,000 taxonomic names, including 130,000 accepted species and 14,000 accepted subspecies, which is much more than the originally projected number of 100,000 species. This represents a huge effort by more than 400 contributing specialists throughout Europe and is a unique (standard) reference suitable for many users in science, government, industry, nature conservation and education. Coleoptera represent a huge assemblage of holometabolous insects, including as a whole more than 200 recognized families and some 400,000 described species worldwide. Basic information is summarized on their biology, ecology, economic relevance, and estimated number of undescribed species worldwide. Little less than 30,000 species are listed from Europe. The Coleoptera 2 section of the Fauna Europaea database (Archostemata, Myxophaga, Adephaga and Polyphaga excl. the series Elateriformia, Scarabaeiformia, Staphyliniformia and the superfamily Curculionoidea) encompasses 80 families (according to the previously accepted family-level systematic framework) and approximately 13,000 species. Tabulations included a complete list of the families dealt with, the number of species in each, the names of all involved specialists, and, when possible, an estimate of the gaps in terms of total number of species at an European level. A list of some recent useful references is appended. Most families included in the Coleoptera 2 Section have been updated in the most recent release of the Fauna Europaea index, or are ready to be updated as soon as the FaEu data management environment completes its migration from Zoological Museum Amsterdam to Berlin Museum für Naturkunde.