The Collembola of Lebanon and Western Syria. Part I. General Considerations and the Family Onychiuridae

Abstract

The Collembolan fauna of the eastern end of the Mediterranean is still very poorly known. Brown (1926) made the first major contribution by describing twelve species taken by Buxton and Evans in the region of Amara and Baghdad in Iraq. Handschin (1942) recorded all but one of these species from Palestine, and added 26 additional forms. In his recent paper upon the Collembola taken during a speleological expedition in Lebanon, Cassagnau (1951) added 25 new forms to this list. In addition to these major works a number of smaller papers have been published upon new material or further records.The series of papers, of which this is the first, will constitute a description of over 80 species collected from Lebanon and Western Syria. More than 35 are new to science or new records for the Near East. Collections upon which this study was based were made from over I00 localities including most of the major habitats of the region. Caves were poorly represented, but these have already been extensively investigated by Cassagnau (op. cit.).