New beetle family from Puffin colony on Koltur
Clambidae, the newly recorded beetle family Photo: Agnes-Katharina Kreiling.
For the species inventory Tjóðsavnið has been conducting on Koltur since 2019, invertebrates were also collected from the puffin colony at the southern cliffs of the island.
The puffin colony is located on steep and difficult to access terrain, and Bjørn Patursson was in charge of employing and emptying pitfall traps there. It is a very distinct habitat which is reflected in the invertebrate composition in the traps. Many species were only found here and not on the rest of the island, for example the rove beetle Stenichnus collaris and the soil mite Damaeus sp.
Now, even a beetle family has been identified from the samples which has not been recorded from the Faroes before. The family Clambidae ("Agnarklukkuætt" in Faroese) contains tiny, round beetles which are associated with decaying plant material of all sorts.
As of today, a total of 452 species of plants, birds, and invertebrates has been recorded since the beginning of the species inventory – and the list is still growing!
The puffin colony on Koltur where the new beetle family was collected. Photo: Bjørn Patursson
Contact
