A CONTRIBUTION TO THE KNOWLEDGE OF IRANIAN STAPHYLINIDAE ( COLEOPTERA : STAPHYLINOIDEA )

In this study, 94 staphylinid species of 59 genera belonging to four groups (omaliin, tachyporin, oxyteline and staphylinin) and 13 subfamilies (including, Dasycerinae, Omaliinae, Proteininae, Pselaphinae, Oxytelinae, Piestinae, Oxyporinae, Steninae, Paederinae, Staphylininae, Phloeocharinae, Tachyporinae and Aleocharinae) were collected from different regions of Iran.


INTRODUCTION
The family Staphylinidae, with over 46,000 species in thousands of genera, is the second largest family of beetles after the Curculionidae (Caterino et al., 2005).Family Staphylinidae is divided into 4 groups including Omaliine, Tachyporine, Oxyteline and Staphylinine, according to Lawrence and Newton (1982).This family occupies almost all moist environments throughout the world.Because none of them is truly aquatic, they do not live in open waters; although winged adults may be skimmed from the sea surface far from land, their presence is due to misadventure but attests to their dispersive ability.They live in leaf litter of woodland and forest floors and grasslands (Paulian, 1941;Moore and Legner, 1976;Newton et al., 2000).Several species live only on seashores, and many which are specialized to existence in the nests of social insects, live in mushrooms.Many inhabit caves, underground burrows of vertebrate animals, and smaller soil cavities, even burrows that they (a few of them) excavate.The adults and larvae of a few are associated with living flowers.Others climb on plants, especially at night, and hunt for prey.A few seem to live with terrestrial snails.Their distribution in arid environments is restricted to moist microhabitats (Blackwelder, 1943;Seevers, 1957;Newton, 1990).Most rove beetles are predators of insects and other kinds of invertebrates, living in forest leaf litter and similar kinds of decaying plant matter.They are also commonly found under stones, and around freshwater margins.Actually there are numerous species, e.g.some genera of Pselaphinae, Aleocharinae, Scydmaeninae species, which have adapted to living as inquilines in ant and termite colonies, and some live in mutualistic relationships with mammals where they eat fleas and other parasites, thereby benefiting the host.A few species are parasitoids of other insects, particularly of certain fly pupae.Some staphylinids have been shown to feed occasionally on slugs and snails, although apparently they are not specialized to do so as are Cychrini (Coleoptera: Carabidae), nor have slugs and snails been shown to be an important part of the diet as in some Silphinae (Coleoptera: Silphidae) (Klimazewski, 2000;Newton et al., 2001;Löbl and Smetana, 2004;Assing and Schulke, 2006).
The fauna of Iranian Staphylinidae is very diverse but has not been studied much so far (Sakenin et al., 2008a, b, c;Ghahari et al., 2009a, b;Samin et al., 2011a, b).In total 594 species and subspecies in 150 genera belonging to 13 subfamilies of Staphylinidae from Iran have been identified so far (Anlas and Newton, 2010) but the fauna of Iran is more diverse than the mentioned record.This family is studied in this paper on the basis of 4 taxonomic groups (Omaliine, Oxyteline, Staphylinine, Tachyporine).

MATERIALS AND METHODS
The specimens were collected mainly by sweeping net, light traps and aspirator from different regions of Iran.Although almost all the material was collected by the first author and his many students and colleagues, some insect collections of different branches of the Islamic Azad University were used too.Information concerning specific name, description, locality and date of collection, place/field on which the species were collected and number of species is given.Classification and nomenclature suggested by Newton and Thayer (1992), Klimaszewski (2000), Herman (2001) and Löbl and Smetana (2004) have been followed in this study.The recorded insect genera have been listed in phylogenetic order in each subfamily and species are sorted alphabetically.

RESULTS
A total of 94 species of 59 genera and 13 subfamilies of the Omaliine, Tachyporine, Oxyteline and Staphylinine groups were collected.The list of species is given below.

DISCUSSION
The results of the present research show the diversity of rove beetles in different regions of Iran.In this research, a total of 94 species of 59 genera were collected from different regions.We suggest that this kind of survey should be continued in different regions and ecosystems.This will certainly result in the determining of many other species and new records, and probably new species, and it will contribute towards completing the recording of Iranian Staphylinidae.Iran is a large country with various climates and it can therefore be supposed that a large number of species remain to be discovered in different regions.Additionally, in this paper some natural enemies of staphylinids were determined.
In total, 7 species of robber flies (Diptera: Asilidae), 3 species of ground beetles (Coleoptera: Carabidae) and 2 species of ants (Hymenoptera: Formicidae) were collected as predators of Staphylindidae.Rove beetles have natural enemies.Scattered evidence needing review suggests that spiders, various insects (including Reduviidae, Carabidae, Asilidae, Formicidae, etc.) amphibia, reptiles, birds, and bats, include Staphylinidae among their diets.Among the parasites, fungi play a major role, and hymenopterous parasitoids, nematodes, and Nemata, a relatively minor role.In temperate regions of the world, unlike tropical regions, staphylinids may achieve very high population levels at the soil surface; in tropical regions, at least at lower altitudes, ants are ubiquitous and staphylinids less numerous which suggests that ants may limit population levels of staphylinids (Frank and Thomas, 1991;Bordoni and Oromi, 1998).