Anophthalmus hitleri

Anophthalmos hitleri

Anophthalmos hitleri is about 5 millimeters long eyeless, living in caves in Slovenia beetle brown in color from the family of predatory ground beetles. Oscar Scheibel (1881-1953), a German beetle collector who bought several copies for his collection, and recognized as a new species, named the Beetle in 1937 by Adolf Hitler.

Features

Anophthalmos hitleri reaches a body length from 5 to 5.5 mm. He is reddish brown and has on the top of a short, barely visible hairs. The male is glossy, the female rather dull.

The head is elongated with long mandibles, together with them, he is about 1.5 times as long as wide. The greatest width of the head relatively far forward and the sides are evenly rounded, without widen -like back to back. The forehead furrows go backwards apart strong. The sensor goes back down to the middle of the elytra. They are slim and the first four members behave in length in proportion 4:3:5:5 each other.

The pronotum is slightly wider than the head and about the same as wide, with the greatest width at the end of the first quarter. It is not heart-shaped and the sides are narrowing straight back The side edge is fine margins and the only slightly extended rear corners are not deducted. The Basalgrübchen are designed wide and deep. The legs are long and slender designed with grooved tibiae and widened thighs.

The elytra are not quite twice as long as wide and have their greatest width slightly behind the center with a width that is approximately 1.5 times that of the pronotum. They are slightly rounded and slightly flattened along the suture wing. The shoulder area is very strong beveled and indented. By the middle of Deckflägels the side edge is straight and then evenly rounded up to the end. The puncturing is easily formed in the inner strip and decreases in the outward further. In the third row, there are three bristle points, the first in the first -fifth, the second about the middle and the last one in the rear -ninth of the wing-cover is. As with most insects, the shape of the aedeagus ( "penis" ) plays a special role for the classification. The aedeagus of Anophthalmos hitleri is very strong and " plump " trained. He narrows abruptly to the tip, which is bent slightly.

Lifestyle and deposits

Anophthalmos hitleri is a living predatory beetles. He lives as troglobionte kind exclusively in caves and correspondingly has the typical features of cavemen ( troglomorphe characteristics) as the missing eyes or the bright coloration. It is endemic in the carbonate-rich cave systems in Slovenia.

After Scheibel 1937 " inhabited " the kind " the hill country north of Sann ( Savinja ) between Praßberg ( Mozirje ) and Cilli (Celje ) " and thus delimits the east to the area of ​​distribution of Anophthalmos bernhaueri and to the of Anophthalmos schaumi the north and west. The first specimen of this species, a male, was captured in 1932 in a cave called " Steska jama " north of Žalec. Further copies of which are mentioned in the original description ( type specimens ), originating from catches of 1932 and 1937 in caves called Josefistollen and Barbara at Mozirje, Polzela and Žalec.

Designation

The genus name means Anophthalmos " eyeless " and refers to this anatomical feature of the animal. To select the Artepithetons hitleri Scheibel writes in the last sentence of his first description: The Lord Chancellor Adolf Hitler appropriated as an expression of my worship.

The political development in Germany during the time of National Socialism, which culminated in the Holocaust and the Second World War and was responsible for Hitler, the appointment came several times in the discussion. However, according to the international rules of zoological nomenclature (International Code of Zoological Nomenclature, ICZN ), the name can not be changed, since the priority rule applies for the Erstbenennung.

In media reports, the beetle is sometimes called " Hitler beetle". This is not a common trivial name, but a media- effective buzzword. An established German trivial name has not Anophthalmos hitleri.

Collector's value

Because of his name Anophthalmos hitleri is a sought-after collector's item, where it is less about classic insect collectors in the prospective, involving abnormal characteristics or the aesthetics of the animal, but to collectors of Nazi memorabilia. According to media reports the existence of the beetle is already fallen so far due to the intense collecting activity that he is considered to be threatened. The collector value of the animals is high, individual collectors pay more than 1,000 euros for a copy and many beetles were stolen from museum collections.