Trox perrisii Fairmaire, 1868

Trox perrisii Fairmaire, 1868 View in CoL

AUSTRIA; FRANCE. Numerous instances of specimens from woodpecker nests secondarily occupied by starlings or “ bats ” [sic!] were reported by Petrovitz (1969: 104). From Petrovitz’s short report it cannot confidently be concluded that the associated vertebrates were bats indeed: it may have been only birds, or both birds and bats. Byk et al. (2019) comprehensively reviewed the ecology of Trox perrisii without adding any information about this species being associated with either bats or caves, besides misinterpreting Petrovitz’s (1969) report therein that they categorically stated that Petrovitz’s woodpecker hollows were secondarily occupied by bats, not birds. We disagree that such a bat association can be confirmed from existing literature. Byk et al. (2019) confirmed that this beetle species inhabits the nests of several bird species, as well as hollows in trees, with or without bird inhabitants. Trox nidicola Bonnaire, 1881 is a junior synonym of Trox perrisii : the description of this nominal species was based on a small number of specimens found among debris in a bird nest in a tree hollow ( Bonnaire, 1881). There is—in our view—no unambiguous evidence that Trox perrisii is associated either with caves or with bat guano. We suggest that Trox perrisii be deleted from the corpus of bat-guano-associated Trogidae . The species does seem to be bird-guano-associated. It is not a troglophile.