Fauna Europaea provides a public web-service with an index of scientific names (including synonyms) of all living European land and freshwater animals, their geographical distribution at country level (up to the Urals, excluding the Caucasus region), and some additional information. The Fauna Europaea project covers about 230,000 taxonomic names, including 130,000 accepted species and 14,000 accepted subspecies, which is much more than the originally projected number of 100,000 species. This represents a huge effort by more than 400 contributing specialists throughout Europe and is a unique (standard) reference suitable for many users in science, government, industry, nature conservation and education. Coleoptera represent a huge assemblage of holometabolous insects, including as a whole more than 200 recognized families and some 400,000 described species worldwide. Basic information is summarized on their biology, ecology, economic relevance, and estimated number of undescribed species worldwide. Little less than 30,000 species are listed from Europe. The Coleoptera 2 section of the Fauna Europaea database (Archostemata, Myxophaga, Adephaga and Polyphaga excl. the series Elateriformia, Scarabaeiformia, Staphyliniformia and the superfamily Curculionoidea) encompasses 80 families (according to the previously accepted family-level systematic framework) and approximately 13,000 species. Tabulations included a complete list of the families dealt with, the number of species in each, the names of all involved specialists, and, when possible, an estimate of the gaps in terms of total number of species at an European level. A list of some recent useful references is appended. Most families included in the Coleoptera 2 Section have been updated in the most recent release of the Fauna Europaea index, or are ready to be updated as soon as the FaEu data management environment completes its migration from Zoological Museum Amsterdam to Berlin Museum für Naturkunde.

Osmoderma eremita (Scopoli, 1763) is a saproxylic scarab beetle protected by the Habitats Directive in the European Union. The present paper is part of a special issue on monitoring of saproxylic beetles protected in Europe and starts with a revision of the current knowledge on systematics, ecology, ethology and conservation of O. eremita and its allied species, followed by experimental tests of different methods for monitoring its populations. Two methods were compared in several localities of central Italy: (1) the widely used pitfall traps into tree cavities and (2) black cross windows traps baited with a specific pheromone produced by male beetles. The first method, often used in northern and central Europe, did not give acceptable results in Italy probably because of the scarcity of veteran trees with large hollows. It could only be used successfully in areas where: 1) tree hollows were abundant, large enough and with sufficient amounts of wood mould for planting pitfall traps and 2) the team is composed of several operators in order to ensure the checking of at least 150 traps every two days during the whole period of mating activities (15 July–25 August). The second method, consisting of hanging 30 black cross window traps during the mating period and checking them every two days, turned out to be better for capturing a significant number of individuals but cannot be used every year because of the possible disturbance on mating activities of the species

One aim of the MIPP Project (http://www.lifemipp.eu) was to develop non-invasive monitoring methods for selected saproxylic beetles. In this paper, a method is proposed for monitoring the larvae of Osmoderma eremita in their natural habitat (i.e. hollow trees), using a conservation detection dog (CDD). Wood mould sampling (WMS), the standard method to detect hermit beetles and other saproxylic insects inside tree hollows, is time-consuming and exposes the target species and the whole saproxylic communities to some risks. In contrast, CDDs pose no risk to the species living inside trees while, at the same time, offer a powerful tool for surveying the insects. In this paper, the methods applied to train the dog are presented, together with the results for accuracy (the overall proportion of correct indications), sensitivity (the proportion of correct positive indications) and specificity (the proportion of correct negative indications) obtained once the CDD had been fully trained. Results are presented for nitrocellulose filters with the odour of the target species, for larvae living inside hollow trees, for frass and for the remains of adults. A comparison of the efficiency between CDD and WMS showed that employing the dog was much less time-consuming than WMS. The literature on training CDDs for nature conservation tasks, with particular reference to cases involving Coleoptera, was also reviewed. One aim of the MIPP Project (http://www.lifemipp.eu) was to develop non-invasive monitoring methods for selected saproxylic beetles. In this paper, a method is proposed for monitoring the larvae of Osmoderma eremita in their natural habitat (i.e. hollow trees), using a conservation detection dog (CDD). Wood mould sampling (WMS), the standard method to detect hermit beetles and other saproxylic insects inside tree hollows, is time-consuming and exposes the target species and the whole saproxylic communities to some risks. In contrast, CDDs pose no risk to the species living inside trees while, at the same time, offer a powerful tool for surveying the insects. In this paper, the methods applied to train the dog are presented, together with the results for accuracy (the overall proportion of correct indications), sensitivity (the proportion of correct positive indications) and specificity (the proportion of correct negative indications) obtained once the CDD had been fully trained. Results are presented for nitrocellulose filters with the odour of the target species, for larvae living inside hollow trees, for frass and for the remains of adults. A comparison of the efficiency between CDD and WMS showed that employing the dog was much less time-consuming than WMS. The literature on training CDDs for nature conservation tasks, with particular reference to cases involving Coleoptera, was also reviewed.

The LIFE project “MIPP” - Monitoring of Insects with Public Participation (11 NAT/IT/000252) is focused on selected insect species (five Coleoptera, three Lepidoptera, one Orthoptera), all included in the annexes II and IV of the Habitats Directive (HD) 92/43/EEC. One important aim is a citizen science initiative where every person may become a citizen scientist and collect faunistic data on the above species throughout Italy. Another objective of the project MIPP is the development of standard methods for monitoring the conserva- tion status of the five target beetle species. One innovative method employed is a sniffer-dog (“Osmodog”), trained to find the rare and endangered hermit beetle, Osmoderma eremita, which lives in veteran, hollow trees. The dog detects the strong smell of mature peach produced by adult males and an odor produced by the larvae. Another objective of the project MIPP is the dissemination of topics such as HD, Natura 2000, importance of dead-wood, Life projects, insect monitoring and conservation.