First record of Cybocephalus nipponicus (Coleoptera, Cybocephalidae) in Romania

Abstract

Cybocephalus nipponicus Endrödy-Younga 1971 is recorded for the first time in Romania. An up-to-date map of its distribution in Europe is presented, together with pictures of the male collected at ‘Dunele Marine de la Agigea’ nature reserve.

New record of a biological control agent, Cybocephalus nipponicus Endrödy-Younga, 1971 (Coleoptera: Cybocephalidae) from Iran

“…Although Cybocephalus nipponicus is native to Southeast Asia and the South Pacific (Endrödy-Younga, 1971; Tian, 2006), it has been recently introduced and dispersed in many countries. This biological control agent has been intentionally introduced to Korea, Thailand, Taiwan, South Africa and the United States (Smith & Cave, 2006;Smith & Bailey, 2007;Song et al, 2012;Labuschagne et al, 1996), but it seems to have accidentally dispersed in the Hawaiian Islands (Ewing, 2004), as well as in Europe, Italy (Lupi, 2002), Hungary (Merkl et al, 2017), Spain (Viñolas et al, 2017) and Romania (Pintilioaie & Mate, 2023). The introduction pathway of this species in Iran is not clear but due to its distribution in the Middle East, it is likely it has passively reached Iran with armoured scale on imported plants from East Asia, subsequently spreading with the host plants of the scale insects.…”