Ptinella Motschulsky, 1844

Ptinella Motschulsky, 1844 View in CoL

To date, 13 species of the genus Ptinella are reported from Europe ( Sörensson 2015). Six of these (or seven if counting Ptinella mekura Kubota, 1945 , which is of an unclear status) are not native: Ptinella cavelli (Broun, 1893) ; Ptinella errabunda Johnson, 1975 ; Ptinella johnsoni Rutanen, 1985 ; Ptinella populicola ( Vorst, 2012) ; Ptinella simsoni (Matthews, 1878) ; and Ptinella taylorae Johnson, 1977 (Sörensson and Johnson 2004; Vorst 2012). Four species ( P. cavelli , P. errabunda , P. simsoni , and P. taylorae ) originated from the Australian region ( Australia and New Zealand), P. populicola is from North America, and P. johnsoni most likely is native to the eastern Palearctic (Sörensson and Johnson 2004; Vorst 2012).

Beetles in the genus Ptinella are among the smallest members of the family ( 0.5–1.3 mm). Their yellow or brown bodies are elongated and flat with strongly shortened elytra. Nearly all species are represented by two morphological forms: forma alata with a strongly pigmented body and welldeveloped wings and eyes; and forma aptera , which lacks wings, has underdeveloped or no eyes, and shortened elytra ( Besuchet 1971; Vorst 2012). Identification to species in this genus is based on the spermatheca.

Four species are recorded from Poland: Ptinella aptera (Guérin-Méneville, 1839) ; Ptinella denticollis (Fairmaire, 1857) ; Ptinella limbata (Heer, 1841) ; and Ptinella tenella (Erichson, 1845) ( Burakowski et al. 1978) . However, the Catalogue of Palaearctic Coleoptera ( Sörensson 2015) does not list P. tenella from Poland. We report herein two additional species, Ptinella britannica Matthews, 1858 and Ptinella microscopica (Gillmeister, 1845) , for the Polish fauna.