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Amedeo Falci

  • Biodiversity Journal, 14 (4): 0791-0849 - MONOGRAPH

    Ignazio Sparacio, Calogero Muscarella, Amedeo Falci & Salvatore Surdo
    Tiger beetles of Sicily (Coleoptera Cicindelidae)
    https://doi.org/10.31396/Biodiv.Jour.2023.14.4.791.849

    ABSTRACT
    Tiger beetles (Coleoptera Cicindelidae) are predators, both in the larval and adult state and each species tends to be specialized within a narrow habitat. For this reason, tiger beetles are excellent indicators of the quality of the biotopes in which they live and of the possible degradation of said biotopes due to anthropic actions. Currently, the populations of Cicindelidae are declining almost all over the world due to the destruction of the environments in which they live. In the Euro-Mediterranean area, including Italy, Cicindelidae mainly live in sandy environments like beaches, river mouths, the edges of lagoons and dune, and backdune ponds. Few species live on rocky coasts, in inland locations or in environments far from water such as paths and forest clearings. From what has been said, the coastal environments generally preferred by Cicindelidae are precisely those which in Italy, and also in Sicily, have undergone the greatest alteration and, often, destruction by man and his activities. In Sicily the Cicindelidae have always been studied since the first regional catalogs of the 19th century and other works were carried out in the following years, up to the present day. In the last decade, numerous reports have spread on the web, in numerous online chats, nature forums, etc. The aim of this work is to summarize and improve in a catalog what is known so far about the Sicilian Cicindelidae to highlight their peculiar systematic, ecological and geographical characteristics also in relation to the environment in which they live.

  • Biodiversity Journal, 14 (4): 0741-0747

    Ignazio Sparacio, Pietro Lo Cascio, Calogero Muscarella, Salvatore Surdo, Amedeo Falci & Francesco Allegrino
    A new subspecies of Cicindela (Cicindela) campestris Linnaeus, 1758 (Coleoptera Cicindelidae) from the Aeolian Islands (Italy)
    https://doi.org/10.31396/Biodiv.Jour.2023.14.4.741.747
    https://www.zoobank.org/A5E8037D-E05E-4513-9C98-59636F5C7C11

    ABSTRACT
    Cicindela (Cicindela) campestris didyme n. ssp. from the islands of Salina and Lipari (Aeolian Archipelago, Sicily, Italy) is here described. The new subspecies differs from other Italian populations of C. campestris, in particular from the closest ones of Sicily (C. campestris siculorum Schilder, 1953) and Calabria (C. campestris calabrica Mandl, 1944) for some morphological characters such as the shape of the clypeus, the granules of the elytra less elevated and more sparse and the different aedeagus. It is immediately recognizable by more or less extensively green-brown color of the dorsal surface often entirely red-brown.