FIRST RECORD OF BERAEA PULLATA (CURTIS, 1834) (INSECTA, TRICHOPTERA) FOR ALBANIA Halil IBRAHIMI1* and Mladen KUČINIĆ2 1Department of Biology, Faculty of Mathematical and Natural Sciences, University of Prishtina “Hasan Prishtina”, “Mother Teresa” p.n., 10 000 Prishtina, Republic of Kosovo 2 Department of Biology (Laboratory of Entomology), Faculty of Science, University of Zagreb, Rooseveltov trg 6, 10000 Zagreb, Croatia * Corresponding author halil.ibrahimi@uni-pr.edu Abstract - Beraea pullata, a species of the family Beraeidae, is present all over Eu- ropean continent but with only few records from the Balkan Peninsula. We report this species for the first time from Albania, more precisely from Bjeshkët e Nemuna Mountains. Other sympatric species with Beraea pullata in investigated locality are: Rhyacophila fasciata, Philopotamus montanus and Hydropsyche spp. Beraea pullata is the fifth species of the family Beraeidae currently known for Albania. KEY WORDS: Beraeidae; rare species; aquatic insects; Balkan Peninsula Izvleček – PRVA NAJDBA VRSTE BERAEA PULLATA (CURTIS, 1834) (IN- SECTA, TRICHOPTERA) V ALBANIJI Beraea pullata, vrsta iz družine Beraeidae, je prisotna vsepovsod po evropski celini, a le z malo podatki z balkanskega polotoka. Prvič poročamo o tej vrsti v Albaniji, natančneje v gorovju Bjeshkët e Nemuna. Druge z vrsto Beraea pullata simpatrične vrste na preiskanem najdišču so Rhyacophila fasciata, Philopotamus montanus in Hydropsyche spp. Beraea pullata je peta vrsta družine Beraeidae, znana za Albanijo doslej. KLJUČNE BESEDE: Beraeidae; redke vrste; vodne žuželke; Balkanski polotok 83 ACTA ENTOMOLOGICA SLOVENICA LJUBLJANA, JUNIJ 2018 Vol. 26, øt. 1: 83–88 Introduction The family Beraeidae is a small family composed of 7 genera and more than 50 species. It reaches its highest diversity in the western Palearctic region (Holzenthal et al. 2007). In European continent are present more than 30 species belonging to five genera: Beraea Stephens 1836, Beraeamyia Mosely 1936, Beraeodes Eaton 1867, Beraeodina Mosely 1931 and Ernodes Wallengren 1891 (Malicky 2004). Larvae of this family are cold stenoterm most commonly found in small streamlets, but also spring areas where they live amongst fallen leaves, roots of vegetation and also nearby shore vegetation. Larval cases of species of this family are usually around or less than 1 cm in length, narrowing at the end and made by small sand grains. Adults emerge from spring to autumn (Graf et al. 2008). The genus Beraea is represented by more than 20 species in the European fauna. Beraea pullata is present across the whole European continent (Malicky 2013). The goal of this paper is to contribute to the knowledge of the distribution of cad- disflies in Albania which still remains incomplete and also to give an overview about distribution patterns of Beraea pullata in Southeastern Europe. Material and methods Data sampling and processing Adult caddisfly specimens were collected with entomological net during June 2013. Collected samples were preserved in 80 % ethanol. The specimens were iden- tified under a stereomicroscope with determination keys by Malicky (2004) and Ku- manski (1985, 1988). The collection is deposited at the Laboratory of Zoology of the Faculty of Natural and Mathematical Sciences, University of Prishtina, Kosovo. Study area The sampling site is located nearby Sylbicë village in Bjeshkët e Nemuna Moun- tains in Albania close to the state border with the Republic of Kosovo. The sampling site (Figure 1) is located in a stream originating from this range of mountains (42.512371˚N, 20.059276˚E, and 1451 m above sea level). The streambed is moder- ately shaded by nearby vegetation and is consisted by gravel, sand and stones of dif- ferent sizes. Results and Discussion Material examined: Family Beraeaidae Beraea Stephens 1836 Beraea pullata (Curtis, 1834) One adult male specimen was caught with entomological net on 21.06.2013. Acta entomologica slovenica, 26 (1), 2018 84 Other species sympatric with Beraea pullata in this sample are: Rhyacophila fas- ciata Hagen, 1859 (3♂♂), Philopotamus montanus (Donovan, 1813) (3♂♂) and Hy- dropsyche spp. (5♀♀). During this investigation we found Beraea pullata for the first time in the Republic of Albania. We found adult of this species close to the hypocrenal zone of a streamlet in Bjeshkët e Nemuna. In some countries (Fig. 2) such as Slovenia, Beraea pullata is widespread (Urbanič 2003) while in most of the countries surrounding Albania it be- longs to the group of rare species. In Macedonia it was only found for the first time recently (Oláh and Kovacs 2014) and Kozuf Mountains still represents the only locality in this country where it is found. In Kosovo it is currently known from two localities only (Ibrahimi et al. 2014, Ibrahimi and Thaqi 2016), both of them in Bjeshkët e Nemuna Mountains and one of them in Lloqan, nearby the locality where we found it for the first time in Albania during this investigation. Beraea pullata is registered in the Polish Red list of Trichoptera (Buczynska 2008), in France it is as- sessed as a rare species (Santoul et al. 2005) and in second category of endangerment of the Red List of Caddisflies of Berlin (Mey 2005). Larvae of Beraea pullata usually prefer eucrenal and hypocrenal zone but are found at lesser degree in epirhithral zone as well. Although reported from madicol microhabitats (Graf et al. 2008), some investigations reveal that larvae of B. pullata show no strong preferences for tested microhabitats (Urbanič et al. 2005). Adults are reported to emerge during the spring and summer (Graf et al. 2008) and were usually found to be active during the day and also during the night (Ibrahimi and Thaqi 2016; Ibrahimi et al. 2014). However, during our investigation and other investigations in neighboring countries of Albania, adults of this species were found during June-July period only. Regarding altitude preferences, this species is reported from wide variety of altitudes ranging from colline to subalpine areas (Graf et al. 2008). During this in- vestigation and other records (Oláh and Kovacs 2014, Ibrahimi and Thaqi 2016; Ibrahimi et al. 2014) from neighboring countries of Albania, Beraea pullata was found in an altitude range between 1450 and 2000 m. Beraea pullata is the fifth species of the Beraeidae family currently known from Albania. Previously these species were recorded: Beraea zawadil Malicky, 1977, Be- raeamyia schmidi Botosaneanu, 1960, Ernodes articularis (Pictet, 1834) and Ernodes skipetarum Malicky, 1986. The caddisfly fauna of Albania is still insufficiently known with several more de- tailed investigations carried out during the last decade. This investigation contributes to the inventory of the caddisfly fauna of Albania and also gives further ecological and geographical notes on the Beraea pullata. Acknowledgements This paper is an outcome of the project “The Drusinae (Insecta: Trichoptera) in a world of global change” (project number P23687-B17, PI: J. Waringer) funded by the Austrian Science Fund FWF). The authors would like to thank Gorazd Urbanič whose comments significantly improved this manuscript. Halil Ibrahimi, Mladen Kuœiniå: First record of Beraea pullata (Curtis, 1834) (Insecta, Trichoptera) for Albania 85 Acta entomologica slovenica, 26 (1), 2018 86 Fig. 1: Sampling site in Sylbicë village in Bjeshkët e Nemuna in Albania. Fig. 2: Distribution of Beraea pullata in Europe prior to the current investigation, according to the Distribution Atlas of European Trichoptera (DAET 2017). References Buczynska E., 2008: The caddisflies (Trichoptera) of springs in the Roztocze region (south-eastern Poland). Annales Universitatis Mariae Curie-Sklodowska Lublin - Polonia, LXIII(2): 13-22. DAET, 2017: Distributional Atlas of European Trichoptera. . Graf W., Murphy J., Dahl J., Zamora-Muñoz C., López-Rodríguez M.J., 2008: Distribution & ecological preferences of European freshwater organisms. Vol. 1. Trichoptera. Pensoft Publishers, Sofia, Bulgaria, 389 pp. Holzenthal R.W., Blanhik R.J., Prather A.L., Kjer, K.M., 2007: Order Trichoptera Kirby, 1813 (Insecta), Caddisflies, p. 639- 698. In: Zhang, Z.-Q. & Shear, W.A. (Eds.), Linnaeus Tercentenary: Progress in Invertebrate Taxonomy. Zootaxa, 1668: 1-766. Ibrahimi H., Kučinić M., Gashi A., Grapci-Kotori L., 2014: Trichoptera Biodi- versity of the Aegean and Adriatic Sea Basins in the Republic of Kosovo. Journal of Insect Science, 14(1):1-8. Ibrahimi H., Thaqi A., 2016: First record of Limnephilus centralis Curtis, 1834 (In- secta: Trichoptera) from the Republic of Kosovo. Acta Entomologica Slovenica, 24(2): 209-214. Kumanski K., 1985: Trichoptera, Annulipalpia. Fauna Bulgarica 15, Bulgarska Aka- demi na Naukite, Sofia, 243 pp. Kumanski K., 1988: Trichoptera, Integripalpia. Fauna Bulgarica 19, Bulgarska Aka- demi na Naukite, Sofia, 354 pp. Malicky H., 2004: Atlas of European Trichoptera. 2nd Edition, Springer, Netherlands, 359 pp. Malicky, H., 2013: Trichoptera. Fauna Europaea version 2.6.2. http://www.faunaeur.org (27.07.2016). Mey W., 2005: Rote Liste und Gesamtartenliste der Köcherfliegen (Trichoptera) von Berlin. In: Der Landesbeauftragte Fur Naturschutz und Landschaftspflege / Senatsverwaltung Fur Stadtentwicklung (Hrsg.): Rote Listen der gefährdeten Pflanzen und Tiere von Berlin. CD-ROM Oláh J., Kovacs T., 2014: New species and records of Balkan Trichoptera III. Folia Historico-Naturalia Musei Matraensis, 38:97-131. Santoul F., Figuerola J., Mastrorillo S., Cereghino R., 2005: Patterns of rare fish and aquatic insects in a southwestern French river catchment in relation to simple physical variables. Ecography, 28: 307-314. Urbanič G., 2003: New records to the caddisfly (Trichoptera) fauna of Slovenia, II. Acta Entomologica Slovenica, 11(1): 79-83. Urbanič G., Toman M. J., Krušnik C., 2005: Microhabitat type selection of caddisfly larvae (Insecta: Trichoptera) in a shallow lowland stream. Hydrobiologia, 541: 1-12. Received / Prejeto: 6. 6. 2017 Halil Ibrahimi, Mladen Kuœiniå: First record of Beraea pullata (Curtis, 1834) (Insecta, Trichoptera) for Albania 87 Acta entomologica slovenica, 26 (1), 2018 88