Platycerus spinifer

Platycerus spiniger

Platycerus spiniger is a species of polyphagous Coleoptera insect in the Lucanidae family. The scientific authority of the species is Schaufuss, having been described in the year 1862. It is a species present in Portuguese territory. This species is endemic to the Iberian Peninsula.

This is an obligate saproxylic species. Towards the Mediterranean part of its distribution in Spain, it is present mainly in mountains above 700 and often 1,000 m; in the north-western part of Spain it is also present at lower altitude, even below 100 m (A. Quirós pers. comm. 2009, M. Méndez pers. obs. 2009).
P. spinifer lives in forests (beech Fagus and oak Quercus) but also in shrubby vegetation with Cytisus spp. that are known to grow in degraded habitats (in north-western part of Spain) or Retama sphaerocarpa (in Mediterranean part) (A. Quirós pers. comm. 2009). Habitat preferences, however, have not been systematically assessed.
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Distribution

In Portugal this species occurs in the northern half, with very scattered records, mostly from mountain areas - it is known from the extreme north and from the northern central part (areas 150 km apart) since the 19th century (Oliveira 1893). There are unpublished recent records (1996 onwards) from the two areas and also from an intermediate site (J.M. Grosso-Silva and P. Soares-Vieira pers. obs. 2009)

In Spain it is present in the north-western part of the country, in the Cantabrian Range, and towards the south, mainly in mountain areas (Iberian System, Sierra de Guadarrama, Sierra de Gredos, Sierra Nevada, Sierra de Cazorla) (López-Colón 2000, A. Quirós pers. comm. 2009). There are records from 79 10 x10 km² grid, 30 of them with data from before 1980 (A. Quirós pers. comm. 2009). This species is known from 105 localities in Spain (A. Quirós pers. comm. 2009).

Status

CONTINUING DECLINE IN AREA, EXTENT AND/OR QUALITY OF HABITAT

References:

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https://www.iucnredlist.org/species/157754/5138829#text-fields

IUCN. 2010. IUCN Red List of Threatened Species (ver. 2010.1). Available at: www.iucnredlist.org. (Accessed: 10 March 2010).

López-Colón, J. I. 2000. Familia Lucanidae. In: Martín-Piera, F.; López-Colón, J. I. (ed.), Fauna Iberica Vol. 14: Coleoptera, Scarabaeoidea I., CSIC, Madrid.

Oliveira, M.P. 1893. Catalogue des insectes du Portugal. Coléoptères. Coimbra.

Verdú, JR., Numa, C. and Galante, E. 2006. Libro Rojo de los Invertebrados de España. Dirección General para la Biodiversidad. Ministerio de Medio Ambiente, Madrid.

https://naturdata.com/especies-portugal/platycerus/0/
Taxonomy
KingdomAnimalia
DivisionArthropoda
ClassInsecta
OrderColeoptera
FamilyLucanidae
GenusPlatycerus
SpeciesP. spiniger
Photographed in
Portugal