ISRAEL JOURNAL OF ENTOMOLOGY, Vol. 37, 2007, pp. 55–180 The Apionidae of Israel and the Sinai Peninsula (Coleoptera: Curculionoidea) 1ARIEL LEIB LEONID FRIEDMAN AND 2AMNON FREIDBERG Department of Zoology, The George S. Wise Faculty of Life Sciences, Tel Aviv University, Tel Aviv 69978, Israel E-mail:
[email protected];
[email protected] ABSTRACT Seventy-five species in thirty genera of Apionidae are recorded from Israel and the Sinai Peninsula, together with data on their general and local distribution, host plants, habitat, phenology and parasitoids. Keys are provided to the Curculionoidea families of Israel and to genera and species of the Apionidae of Israel. Twenty-six species are newly recorded from Israel, including five newly-described species: Catapion halperini n. sp., Ceratapion (Angustapion) ramoni n. sp., Perapion eretzisrael n. sp., Squamapion terrasanctae n. sp., and Stenopterapion argamani n. sp. A new genus, Necatapion, is proposed for Catapion bruleriei (Desbrochers), which is transferred from the Oxystomatini to incertae sedis. All new and most other species are illustrated. KEY WORDS: Apionidae, weevils, Israel, Sinai, Palaearctic, taxonomy, zoogeography, new species, new genus. INTRODUCTION The Apionidae are a group of weevils distributed world-wide (except for Antarctica), and comprising approximately 1800 (Kuschel, 1995) to 2100 (Gønget, 1997) described species, and at least 2000 undescribed species (Wanat, 2001). The Palaearctic fauna of the Apionidae comprises approximately 500–550 species (Gønget, 1997; Wanat, 2001), although this number keeps rising. The Apionidae fauna of the Eastern Palaearctic is much less studied than that of the Western Palaearctic. The within-family phylogenetic relationships were studied mostly among the Western Palaearctic Apionidae (Alonso- Zarazaga, 1990b).