Oxythyrea?
Location: Israel, Hadera area
March 27, 2011 5:48 am
I spotted this cluster of beetles on a flower. They seem to be very common in the area, they were all over the place. I did a little research and found that this is probably a beetle of the Genus Oxythyrea.
Is this correct?
Thank you
Signature: Gal
Hi Gal,
Thanks so much for supplying your photo of what we agree is Chafer in the genus Oxythyrea. A photo of a White Spotted Rose Beetle, Oxythyrea funesta, on the Things Biological website matches nicely and the site indicates: “Its distribution includes Italy, France, Malta, Morocco, Asia Minor and parts of the Middle East. It is not a particularly important species economically, though they can significantly impact grape vines and flowering wheat.” The Scarabs of the Levant website indicates four species in the genus Oxythyrea that all look like good matches:
Oxythyrea abigail Reiche and Saulcy, 1856
Oxythyrea cinctella Schaum, 1841 (Cetonia)
Oxythyrea noemi Reiche and Saulcy, 1856
Oxythyrea albopicta Motschulsky, 1845 (Cetonia).
We believe an expert might need to examine your specimens to correctly identify the species.
Hello Gal,
I am doing scientific work on this genus for almost four years. You can found O. abigail, O. cinctella and O. noemi in Israel. There isn’t O. albopicta in Israel!
From your picture I can tell you one thing, this is not O. cinctella. And I think it is not O. abigail, but better picture will be very helpful (and especially from ventral side).
You can try this very good article for determinating Israel’s Oxythyrea species:
http://www.entomology.org.il/sites/default/files/pdfs/Rittner.pdf
Good luck, Dominik V.
Thanks for the informative comment Dominik.
Hello Gal,
I am doing scientific work on this genus for almost four years. You can found O. abigail, O. cinctella and O. noemi in Israel. There isn’t O. albopicta in Israel!
From your picture I can tell you one thing, this is not O. cinctella. And I think it is not O. abigail, but better picture will be very helpful (and especially from ventral side).
You can try this very good article for determinating Israel’s Oxythyrea species:
http://www.entomology.org.il/sites/default/files/pdfs/Rittner.pdf
Good luck, Dominik V.