A failed invader in the North Atlantic, the case of Aglenus brunneus Gyll. (Col., Colydiidae), a blind flightless beetle from Iceland

Abstract

The occurrence of an occasional pest of mouldy stored product residues, the blind flightless beetle Aglenus brunneus Gyll., in samples from the medieval farm at Reykholt in Iceland, along with several other strongly synanthropic beetles, is considered in relation to its fossil record. The species is dependent on man for its dispersal and survival and it probably had its primary habitat in the warm, decaying litter of the undisturbed forest floor in Europe. Now virtually cosmopolitan, it had been introduced to a remote site in the eastern desert of Egypt by the Roman period and was widespread in medieval northern Europe. The processes by which such an apparently stenotopic species could have invaded are discussed in relation to other evidence for anthropochorous dispersal.

Contribution to the Salpingidae (Coleoptera, Tenebrionoidea) of Greece including new faunistic records and ecological data on a poorly studied family

“…Regarding the cryptogenic A. brunneus, it has been said to originate from North America (de Peyerimhoff 1945) although, this statement has been reviewed as rather controversial (Buckland et al 2009). The species has been discovered in multiple archaeological sites across Northern Europe (Kenward 1975(Kenward , 1976Griffin et al 1988;Kenward and Allison 1994;O'Brien et al 2005;Buckland et al 2009) as well as in Egypt, where an accidental introduction by the Romans has been hypothesised (Panagiotakopulu and van der Veen 1997).…”

“…Regarding the cryptogenic A. brunneus, it has been said to originate from North America (de Peyerimhoff 1945) although, this statement has been reviewed as rather controversial (Buckland et al 2009). The species has been discovered in multiple archaeological sites across Northern Europe (Kenward 1975(Kenward , 1976Griffin et al 1988;Kenward and Allison 1994;O'Brien et al 2005;Buckland et al 2009) as well as in Egypt, where an accidental introduction by the Romans has been hypothesised (Panagiotakopulu and van der Veen 1997). All the aforementioned records correspond to peri-domestic habitats or human mediated transportations, suggesting A. brunneus being highly synanthropic, widespread and probably native to the Old World (Buckland et al 2009;Denux and Zagatti 2010;Barnouin and Zagatti 2017).…”

“…The species has been discovered in multiple archaeological sites across Northern Europe (Kenward 1975(Kenward , 1976Griffin et al 1988;Kenward and Allison 1994;O'Brien et al 2005;Buckland et al 2009) as well as in Egypt, where an accidental introduction by the Romans has been hypothesised (Panagiotakopulu and van der Veen 1997). All the aforementioned records correspond to peri-domestic habitats or human mediated transportations, suggesting A. brunneus being highly synanthropic, widespread and probably native to the Old World (Buckland et al 2009;Denux and Zagatti 2010;Barnouin and Zagatti 2017). In Greece, the species has been collected from caves in Crete (Coiffait 1955;Beron 2016;Paragamian 2021), Thessaly (Popa et al 2019;Paragamian 2021) and Peloponnese (present article) while, such troglophilic encounters have also been reported from Corsica (Coache 2009) and Iran (Sadeghi et al 2014).…”

Coleoptera families other than Cerambycidae, Curculionidae sensu lato, Chrysomelidae sensu lato and Coccinelidae. Chapter 8.5

“…Fossils of alien species have even been found in archeological sites, such as the blind fl ightless beetle Aglenus brunneus in Iceland (Buckland et al 2009) and Amara aulica (alien but native in Europe), which arrived in the Faroe islands with the Viking settlers (Brandt 2006). But the fi rst date of introduction of a new species into a country is often diffi cult to establish.…”

Historical baselines in marine bioinvasions: Implications for policy and management

“…It is highly likely that the dispersal and introduction of marine animals and plants by sea-going ships, in hull fouling and in damp rock-, shingle-, and sand- ballasted holds, commenced long ago, millennia before marine biologists began documenting the biogeography of organisms [ 12 ]. Persuasive insights and a strong signal into the probable scale of early invasions comes from the archaeo-entomologists who have traced the expansion of the European insect fauna via Roman and Viking ships around Europe and across the Atlantic Ocean ([ 23 , 24 ] and references therein). The same ships transporting terrestrial life would, of course, have transported marine life as well.…”