Scatimus strandi Balthasar 1939
Creators: name: Martínez-Revelo, Diego Esteban
name: Lopera-Toro, Alejandro
name: Medina, Claudia A.
Publisher: name: Zenodo
Year: 2020
Subjects: Biodiversity
Taxonomy
Animalia
Arthropoda
Insecta
Coleoptera
Scarabaeidae
Scatimus
Scatimus strandi

description: Scatimus strandi Balthasar, 1939
(Figs. 1E, 2D, 3A, C, 4C, G, K, O, 5–6)
Scatimus strandi Balthasar, 1939:87 (original description)
Material examined (5 males, 4 females, 5 sex undetermined). COLOMBIA: Caquetá: San José del Fragua, Vereda La Esmeralda, Alto río Yuruyaco, 1°20’N 76°06’W, 1000 m, human dung trap, 3–5.ix.2000, E. González (1 male IAvH-E-72021, 1 sex undetermined UPTC COL:1296); San Vicente del Caguán, Parque Natural Nacional Los Picachos, Inspección de Policía Guayabal, Alto del Río Pato, Finca Andalucia, 2°47’51’’N 74°51’18’’W, 1250 m, human dung trap, xi–xii.1997, F. Escobar (4 males, IAvH-E-17308, IAvH-E-17309, IAvH-E-17312, IAvH-E-17315; 2 females IAvH-E-17310, IAvH-E-17316; 1 sex undetermined, UPTC COL:1295). Nariño: Ipiales, Territorio Kofán Cuenca alta de los Ríos Rumiyaco-Ranchería, 0°30’N 77°13’W, 1250 m, human dung trap, x.1998, F. Escobar (2 females IAvH-E-17318, IAvH-E-218072; 3 sex undetermined, UPTC COL:1292, COL:1294, COL:1296).
Geographical distribution. The distribution of the genus in Colombia covers an elevational range between 40–1500 m in the Amazonia, Orinoquia, and Andes regions. No species from the Pacific region or insular areas are yet known. Two distribution patterns associated with the Andes Cordillera were identified: the first pattern corresponds to elevations below 1000 m for the S. ovatus clade and above 1000 m for the S. strandi clade (Table 1). Another pattern is the Cisandean distribution of S. fernandezi and S. strandi, and the Transandean of S. ovatus and S. strenua (Fig. 3).
The S. ovatus clade shows a wide distribution and the capacity to occupy humid, dry, and perturbed environments. According to the biogeographical regionalization of the Neotropics (Morrone 2014), S. ovatus inhabits the Chocó-Darién, Magdalena, and Guajira provinces, occupying both inner and edge habitats of moist forests and dry forests in the Guajira-Barranquilla xeric scrub ecoregion. Scatimus fernandezi is present in the Sabana and Napo provinces, frequent in habitats of gallery forest, rainforest, and occasionally in pastures of the Apure-Villavicencio dry forest ecoregion.
The S. strandi clade shows a more restricted distribution to well-preserved environments. Scatimus strenua is the only species with known distribution restricted in Colombia and presumably endemic to the Magdalena province. However, its likely to be found in lowlands of the Magdalena river basin, similar to other members of the S. strandi clade such as S. pacificus and S. onorei who are found occasionally on the Pacific Coast in Ecuador and S. erinnyos along the coasts of Costa Rica and Panama. Scatimus strandi distribution extends from Ecuador to the Colombian Amazon and Orinoquia foothills, reaching as far north as Meta (Fig. 3), where it is associated with riparian forest and secondary forest (Cárdenas et al. 2020).
Conservation status of Scatimus. The degree of threat faced by Colombian species is not clear, there are no direct conservation efforts for any species, additionally none has been evaluated against the Red List criteria. However, as a consequence of the habitat requirements of the S. strandi clade (well-preserved montane forests) we expect a higher degree of threat for this group compared to the disturbance-tolerant S. ovatus clade.
The known populations present in protected areas are of S. fernandezi in the Reserva Privada de la Sociedad Civil Palmarito (Casanare), of S. ovatus in the Reserva El Palomar (Atlántico), Reserva Miraflores, Santuario de Flora y Fauna Los Colorados (Bolívar), Reserva Nacional El Paujil (Boyacá) and Parque Natural Nacional Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta (Magdalena) and of S. strandi in the Parque Natural Nacional Los Picachos (Caquetá).
description: Published as part of Martínez-Revelo, Diego Esteban, Lopera-Toro, Alejandro & Medina, Claudia A., 2020, Review of Scatimus Erichson (Coleoptera: Scarabaeidae) in Colombia with the description of a new species, pp. 521-534 in Zootaxa 4890 (4) on pages 530-531, DOI: 10.11646/zootaxa.4890.4.5, http://zenodo.org/record/4306554