The authors were in charge of selecting Heteroptera species under threat in Spain, in order to publish a Red List of Invertebrates, launched by the Spanish Ministry of Environment in 1998 in the frame of the National Inventory of...
moreThe authors were in charge of selecting Heteroptera species under threat in Spain, in
order to publish a Red List of Invertebrates, launched by the Spanish Ministry of Environment
in 1998 in the frame of the National Inventory of Biodiversity. Twenty-three
bug species were suggested. Nine of them, in the category of “Vulnerable” according to
the UICN criteria, were fi nally included in the Red List. Th e remaining fourteen also
deserve to be considered as threatened for diff erent reasons. In this paper, a summary
report for each of those fourteen species, concerning their biology, distribution and
threa tening factors is presented. Species included are: Pachycoleus pusillimus (Sahlberg,
1870) (Dipsocoridae), Rhagovelia (Rhagovelia) nigricans nigricans (Burmeister, 1835)
(Veliidae), Acalypta suturalis (Puton, 1879) (Tingidae), Isometopus intrusus (Herrich-
Schaeffer, 1835), Bryocoris pteridis (Fallen, 1807), Ribautocapsus bruckii (Reuter,
1879), Roudairea crassicornis (Puton & Reuter, 1886) (Miridae), Anthocoris visci Douglas,
1889 (Anthocoridae), Rhynocoris (Rhynocoris) lineaticornis (Reuter, 1895) (Reduviidae),
Metatropis rufescens (Herrich-Schaeffer, 1835) (Berytidae), Leptodemus minutus
( Jakovlev, 1874), Auchenodes costalis (Lethierry, 1877) (Oxycarenidae), Trichaphanus
fuentei (Puton, 1894) (Rhyparochromidae) and Leptoceraea femoralis (Horvath, 1897)
(Rhopalidae). All of them are under threat due to human activities, and their survival
includes the protection of their respective habitats. Legislation to promote protection,
as well as environmental education and information of the public, are indispensable to
achieve the success in species conservation.
