ISSN 1211-8788 Acta Musei Moraviae, Scientiae biologicae (Brno) 95(2): 11–18, 2010 New faunistic records of Hebridae (Hemiptera: Heteroptera) from the Mediterranean and the Near and Middle East PETR KMENT1 & ELENA V. K ANYUKOVA2 1 Department of Entomology, National Museum, Kunratice 1, CZ-148 00 Praha 4, Czech Republic; e-mail:
[email protected] 2 Zoological Museum, Far Eastern National University, Okeanskii pr. 37, 690000, Vladivostok, Russia; e-mail:
[email protected] KMENT P. & KANYUKOVA E. V. 2010: New faunistic records of Hebridae (Hemiptera: Heteroptera) from the Mediterranean and the Near and Middle East. Acta Musei Moraviae, Scientiae biologicae (Brno) 95(2): 11–18. – The following new or confirmed records of West and Central Palaearctic Hebridae are given: Hebrus kiritshenkoi Kanyukova, 1997 from Afghanistan, Hebrus montanus Kolenati, 1857 from Greece, Jordan, Lebanon, and Morocco, Hebrus pilipes Kanyukova, 1997 from Afghanistan, and Hebrus oxianus Kanyukova, 1997 from Afghanistan and Iran. The records from Afghanistan are the first representatives of the family Hebridae from this country. Keywords. Heteroptera, Hebridae, Hebrus, faunistics, Afghanistan, Azerbaijan, Greece, Iran, Jordan, Lebanon, Morocco, Uzbekistan, Palaearctic Region Introduction The velvet water bugs or sphagnum bugs, family Hebridae, make up one of the basal groups of the infraorder Gerromorpha (DAMGAARD 2008). These small bugs (1.3–3.7 mm) are predatory on small arthropods. Primarily terrestrial, the bugs inhabit moist microhabitats on the banks of bodies of water (humid litter, moss), and marginal aquatic habitats (sphagnum bogs, sedge marshes), while some tropical representatives live on the surface of water covered with floating plants, sometimes entering the water; the Oriental genus Nieserius Zettel, 1999 is obligatorily subaquatic.