Ricerc@Sapienza

The 24 members of the Euro-Asiatic genus Thymogethes are highly specialized pollen beetles associated as larvae with flowers of Lamiaceae Nepetoideae. All members of the genus were analyzed in within the framework of an integrative taxonomy approach, which was aimed to reconstruct the phylogenetic relationships, as well as the possible pattern of evolution of their larval-host-plant association.

During recent expeditions in North and Southwest Iran, 10 species of Kateretidae and Nitidulidae (Coleoptera) were
found. One species of Kateretidae, Brachyleptus bicoloratus Reitter, 1896, and three nitidulid species, Afrogethes schilskyi
(Reitter, 1897), Stachygethes khnzoriani (Kirejtshuk, 1979), and S. nigerrimus (Rosenhauer, 1856) are recorded for the
first time for the Iranian fauna (the latter is also a new record for Asia). Thymogethes ahriman (Jelínek, 1981) is herein