Definition of ground beetles of the genus Carabus

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09.09.2016 19:19, Barnaba

Being in early June of this year on a business trip to Novosibirsk, I devoted a couple of evenings to walking in the local Arboretum, since I lived nearby. Among other things, I collected a number of different types of carbuses. And at first I intended to collect a maximum of five pairs of each of the encountered species, but the observed diversity threw me into some thoughtfulness, and it is difficult to understand in the dark and lack of time, so I eventually collected much more. I don't know much about carabuses, and I don't know much about Siberian entomofauna either. Not having time to deal with this in the season, I put the mattresses in storage. Yesterday I took it out, looked at it, laid it out "correctly", quickly took pictures, read Shilenkov, looked at the Siberian Morphocarabus on the Internet, went nuts

, stopped being sure of anything, tried to deal with signs like "pronotum barely notched", and once again made sure that the definition of carabuses is not for my weak mind

. Therefore, I ask specialists for help, maybe they are still determined by external signs. Ready to retake what you need. Previews are opened to their full size.
In total, as it seems, there are at least 4 types. Let's start with a simple one.
All collected on June 5-6, 2016, Novosibirsk, arboretum, from 19: 40 to 0: 40. After the number of samples for each "species", % of the total number of collected Carabus is indicated (total of 186 samples).
Vid_1 (C_1) collected 3 copies (1.2), less than 2%, only in one place of the park.
Heffalumped (32-35mm), with the characteristic appearance of C. schoenherri-these are difficult to confuse.
user posted image

Vid_2 (C_2) collected 15 ecz (6.8 and 1 evading male), 8%.
Small (19-21mm), the type of color and structure of the elytra are very similar to the Kursk C. excellens. Although the border is more or less greenish in daylight, it glows golden in situ under the ray of the frontal lobe; in males it is stronger than in females. Presumably, C. henningi.
Males:
user posted image

Part of the females:
user posted image

The dodging male is the same species?
user posted image

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11.09.2016 23:29, Barnaba

Yeah, thanks, I figured so. Continue.
Type 3. (C_3) collected 60 specimens (28.32), 32%, black or almost black, elytra sometimes tinged with brown, monocolored, without border, medium size (23-27. 5 mm), prsp with a weak notch in front of noticeably flattened posterior corners. Most have 2 setae along the edge of the prsp, some have one or none, and they may have fallen out. Also, the "callus-like thickenings" on the 6-9 segments of the antennae in some males are clearly visible, in some they are weakly expressed, and in some they seem to be absent, at least on some segments. The color and shape of prsp vary little, and the proportions of ndcr vary significantly. The overall photo has been re-illuminated to better show the microsculpture.
Intuitively, I believe that this is C.(M). aeruginosus, but there are some signs in the Shilenkov key (the prsp form, for example) they are very subject to arbitrary interpretation, and some seem to vary even in beetles in the same population, if you deal with a fairly large sample. In addition, and even more importantly, there are no descriptions of individual taxa (except for the newly described ones), and the features given in the key usually allow us to distinguish species only in the order of dichotomy, i.e. it is difficult to compare two closely related species, but separated even by just a couple of bifurcations in the key, by additional features, for example, C. spasskianus and C. aeruginosus, or especially C. regalis and C. aeruginosus; the latter, for example, are separated early in the key, and C. regalis falls into the group of species with metallic tones in color, and C. aeruginosus in the opposite group. But I am almost sure that there are black or almost black C. regalis, how to compare them by this key is not clear.
In the photo, part of the sample, males, females:
user posted image

This post was edited by Barnaba - 11.09.2016 23: 33

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13.09.2016 22:37, Barnaba

This is a group of C. aeruginosus - without a bag, it will be hard to tell, in some places they run sympatrically. If you pick up a couple of males in Moscow (at a fair) - there will be an exact answer or someone else who knows how to blow bags and the question of species affiliation will be immediately resolved.
But most likely in Novosibirsk the nominative aeruginosus aeruginosus will be

Igor, thank you very much, if I will be in Moscow during the fair, I will definitely bring both these and the postponed cancellates from Nedvigovka. If I'm on a business trip, I'll try to pass it on. I may blow out the bags myself, I have a little experience, but you need to compare them...
This is not all on Novosibirsk campuses, it will be more interesting later, but in a couple of days, you need to prepare a photo, and something has piled up.

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