The Darkling Beetles of the Sinai Peninsula

Book excerpt: An expanded and updated edition of the out-of-print 2003 supplementum of Zoology in the Middle East, this concise guide to Darkling Beetles of the Sinai Peninsula has been sought after by researchers in taxonomy, faunistics and biogeography. The new book includes two additional subfamilies of tenebrionid beetles (4-5 species), identification keys and more than 90 colour photographs and species distribution maps. Zoogeographically speaking, the Sinai Peninsula is a crossroad and, at the same time, a center of speciation. Despite its generally arid character, the region harbours a wide range of habitats, from sea level to over 2,500 m above. About 10 percent of the Sinai darkling beetles are endemic to the area. The inclusion of species photographs and identification keys makes this book an invaluable reference field guide, for both specialists and non-specialists, who will thus be able to discover the taxonomic and phylogenetic diversity of darkling beetles in the Sinai Peninsula.