Furth David G, Montagna Matteo, Magoga Giulia
Department of Entomology, Smithsonian Institution, Washington, D.C., USA.
Steinhardt Museum of Natural History, Tel Aviv University, Israel.
Zookeys. 2023 Aug 30;1177:57-74. doi: 10.3897/zookeys.1177.101498. eCollection 2023.
Between 1951-1958, most of the Hula Lake and its surrounding swamps in the Upper Jordan River (Rift) Valley of Israel were drained with the supposed purposes to eliminate malaria and to reclaim land for agriculture; both reasons later proved to be unnecessary decisions. With the paucity of biological knowledge of the Hula region, especially its aquatic invertebrates, accurate assessment of the environmental damage from this drainage is still being realized. Based on natural history museum collection specimen records, the pre-drainage presence of some aquatic insect species has been verified. Among these was , a member of a semi-aquatic subfamily (Donaciinae) of Leaf Beetles (Chrysomelidae) and whose Israeli populations were thought to have gone extinct because of the drainage of the Hula and other locations. Recently this species was rediscovered in two populations. However, the molecular identification of two of these recently collected specimens from one population revealed that the identity of this species is actually . In this work, the re-discovery of this species is detailed, and its conservation importance discussed.
1951年至1958年间，以色列约旦河上游（裂谷）谷地的胡拉湖及其周边大部分沼泽地被排干，其假定目的是消除疟疾并开垦土地用于农业；后来证明这两个理由都是不必要的决定。由于对胡拉地区的生物学知识匮乏，尤其是其水生无脊椎动物，对此次排水造成的环境破坏的准确评估仍在进行中。根据自然历史博物馆的馆藏标本记录，已证实了一些水生昆虫物种在排水前的存在。其中有一种是叶甲科（Chrysomelidae）半水生亚科（Donaciinae）的成员，其在以色列的种群被认为因胡拉湖及其他地区的排水而灭绝。最近，这个物种在两个种群中被重新发现。然而，对其中一个种群最近采集的两个标本进行的分子鉴定表明，这个物种的实际身份是 。在这项工作中，详细介绍了该物种的重新发现，并讨论了其保护意义。
