An Early Screening Tool for Exotic Scarab Pests to Australia

About the key

The key itself should be utilised as a simplified and illustrated early screening tool.

This early screening tool is not designed to cover the entirety of the Australian fauna and all exotic pest species. A comprehensive guide to the Australian Scarabaeidae within the publication Australian Beetles Volume 2 has recently been released and is highly recommended: https://www.publish.csiro.au/book/6523

As such, this interactive key is constrained by the species within it, which is currently 36 genera or species level taxa detailed across the large Subfamilies of Cetoniinae, Melolonthinae, Dynastinae and Rutelinae. The current included genera or species were selected after feedback from Australian frontline biosecurity scientists, with the majority of inclusions exotic to Australia. Users should, therefore, treat this key with caution as there are many more Scarab genera that could be encountered but are not presently covered by the key. Further additional species and updates to the key are planned, and we welcome feedback from users regarding errors, or suggestions for potential changes and additions.

The morphological features used in the Scarab key are quite narrow in scope, and limited to 26 significant features describing 65 morphological character states. The diagnostic features that we selected are all external characters, and are readily seen under magnification, to enhance ease of use. Through using the key, the user should be able to quickly restrict potential options. The species fact sheets should then be utilised as they contain more detailed morphological descriptions not present in the key, full image sets, and useful references for further confirmation.

Using the Key

For those unfamiliar with Lucid matrix keys, the Lucid Player Help function should be utilised, as it succinctly covers all the information needed for users.

Users are able to select morphological features (called feature states) in any order to narrow down the list of potential genera and species (called “entities”). The magic wand “best” tool can also be applied to show the quickest path of features to select. If the wand’s selection is not ideal for any reason, the suggested feature can be skipped by pressing it again, which will then show the second best feature to use. Some specific features are initially hidden and may only appear after prior features have been selected that narrow the choice to specific subfamilies (i.e. Dynastinae specific features). Users are always free to select their own choice of features first and then deploy the magic wand at any later step.

A general understanding of morphological terms is beneficial to use the key accurately. The pictorial glossary for Australian Cerambycidae morphology can be used for most features used within this key: www.ento.csiro.au/biology/cerambycidae/morphology/morphology.html and the detailed glossary for the Hawaiian Scarab ID is also a useful resource: http://idtools.org/id/beetles/scarab/glossary.php

All suggestions for future enhancements, feedback or errors are welcomed by the authors and can be sent to [email protected]

Version

June 2020