Conservation status of United States tiger beetles

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This study evaluates the conservation status of all of the U.S. species and subspecies of tiger beetles on the basis of the published literature, unpublished reports, museum and private collections, and the authors’ personal field work and contact with collectors. The authors provide a brief summary of the status of the four species already listed and the two candidates for listing by the U. S. Fish and Wildlife Service. Three taxa believed to be extinct are indicated, and 62 others that were deemed to be sufficiently rare to be considered for listing as endangered or threatened are evaluated. The authors used a 1, 2, 3 grading system that is generally comparable to the terminology of critically imperiled, imperiled, and vulnerable designations, respectively, used in NatureServe Explorer. Fifty-two of these taxa are from the western states and Texas, and most of them are named subspecies with extremely limited distributions and habitats. The authors assigned seven a 1+ grade, the highest level of rarity and/or threats; for two—Cicindelidia floridana Cartwright and Cicindela tranquebarica joaquinensis Knisley and Haines—of the seven, there is sufficient information available to consider them the U. S. forms most in danger of extinction. Future prospects for conservation and listing of tiger beetles seem bleak, however, because of the limited budget and personnel available for Endangered Species in the U. S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the current economic and political climate in the United States.

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ELECTRONIC FILE - Zoology: Invertebrates

SWAP (2/19/2016) citation:
Knisley CB, Kippenhan M, Brzoska D. 2014. Conservation status of United States tiger beetles. [accessed 2015 Jun 1]; Terrestrial Arthropod Reviews. 7(2-4):93–145. http://bison-m.org/documents/48302_TAR_1077_Knisley_et.al.pdf