Two hundreds years of studies: our researcher sumarised large data

Andrew Zamoroka, associate professor of our Department, presented a new reserch on summarizing of two centuries studies of the long horn beetles in Ukraine. In a current paper he reported that the study of the longhorn beetles’ fauna in Ukraine has been going on for two centuries. During this time, a huge collections of materials has been accumulated. These allowed to form a comprehensive view of the fauna of the longhorn beetles in Ukraine. However, despite this, the first complete list of the longhorn beetles of the fauna of Ukraine was compiled by Ivan Zahajkevych only in the late twentieth century. He listed 275 species. Decades later, Olexander Bartenev supplemented Zahajkevych’s list with five more species, suggesting that there are 280 species in Ukraine. In 2009, Bartenev expanded his previous list to 284 species. Recently, however, the fauna of the longhorn beetles in Ukraine has been fluctuating due to climate change. The southern species are actively expanding their range to the north, and seven new species of the longhorn beetles have been identified in Ukraine over the past decade. In addition, the new synonymy is also the reason for changes in the list of the longhorn beetles in Ukraine. In particular, Dr. Andrew Zamoroka removed 14 synonymous species and 5 species that have never been registered in Ukraine from Bartenev’s final list. In total, the curent list of the longhorn beetles includes 279 species from 114 genera, 44 tribes and 6 subfamilies. One of them, Batocera lineolata Chevrolat, 1852, is not naturalized in Ukraine and is known for the only record reared from wooden packaging materials. The degree of study of the longhorn beetles’ fauna of the physiographic regions of Ukraine is very uneven. The fauna of the western, northern, eastern and extreme southern regions of Ukraine is the most entirely studied. At the same time, the fauna of the central regions of Ukraine is still very poorly known. Further research on the longhorn beetles in Ukraine should be conducted in two directions: 1) completing the lists of physiographic regions and 2) monitoring fauna changes under the influence of climate change.