Los coleópteros carábidos de las islas Baleares (Coleoptera: Carabidae)

Resum

It has been actualized the inventory of species of the family Carabidae occurring in the Balearic Islands, by joining records of samplings carried out by the Department of Zoology of Murcia, the collection of Prof. Eduard Petitpierre, and the collection of the IMEDEA. Total number of species for the Archipelago is 228; Majorca with Cabrera harbor 190 species, while Minorca harbors 141, and 87 have been recorded in Ibiza and Formentera. It is corroborated the faunistic similarity of islands making up the Gimnesias Archipelago, Majorca and Minorca, whose settlement has been influenced by historical, geographic and climatic factors. The occurrence of lineages as Carabus, Reicheia and Percus¸ suggests a common history with other major islands of the West Mediterranean Basin. Minorca shows a number of peculiarities, namely high species diversity, a low percentage of Mediterranean elements and a high proportion of Asiatic and European elements, perhaps due to a milder climate that favors the occurrence of hygrophylic ground beetles. On the other hand, the Pitiusas show a lower number of species than that theoretically expected according to island area, but to date there is no satisfactory explanation for this finding. Faunistic differences between Pitiusas and Gimnesias are likely due to geological factors and the distance presently separating them. However, the close position of the Pitiusas with regard to the Iberian Peninsula (Alicante), does not seem to have much influenced these differences, as species shared between Iberia and the Pitiusas but not occurring in the Gimnesias, are few. Endemic taxa to the Gimnesias are relatively abundant and correspond to Miocene lineages, what agrees with their geological history; these endemic taxa are scarce in the Pitiusas, thus suggesting a more recent settlement.