Two new species of Typhlocharis Dieck, 1869 (Coleoptera, Carabidae) from Portugal and notes on the related species Artur R. M. Serrano & Carlos A. S. Aguiar * Centro de Biologia Ambiental/Departamento de Biologia Animal, Faculdade de Cie ˆ ncias da Universidade de Lisboa, R. Ernesto de Vasconcelos, C2, 1749-016 Lisboa, Portugal. Received April 2005; accepted March 2006 Published online 12 October 2006 With 27 figures Key words: Coleoptera, Carabidae, Anillina, Typhlocharis , gomezi and diecki groups, new species, Portugal. Abstract The present study describes two endogean carabid species of Typhlocharis Dieck, Typhlocharis bivari sp. n. and Typhlocharis lunai sp. n., belonging to the T . gomezi species group and to the T . diecki species group, respectively. The work provides diag- nostic characters and in particular, the structure of male genitalia. Affinities to putative relatives and keys for the identifica- tion of males and females of the gomezi and diecki species groups are also given. # 2006 WILEY-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim Introduction Within the subtribe Anillina and according to the catalogue of the ground beetles of the Iber- ian Peninsula (Serrano 2003) the genus Typhlo- charis Dieck, 1869 (Coleoptera: Carabidae: Tre- chinae: Bembidiini) is the richest one in this Peninsula with 37 known species. Representa- tives of Typhlocharis are distributed throughout the Iberian Peninsula (Europe), Morocco and Tunisia (North Africa) (Jeannel 1963). Species of this genus have been found in the vestiges of the Lusitanian, the Lionigurian, the Betic Riffian and the Numidian Massifs and the genus is considered a very old one (Jeanne, 1973). According to Jeannel (1963) the ances- tral lucicolous of the Typhlocharis expanded from Africa to the Betic Riffian Massif 65 mil- lion years ago (Montian, Inner Palaeocene), radiating to the present biogeographic limits. However, taking into account the more recent knowledge of the structure of the Western Mediterranean from the end of Mesozoic to the end of Pleistocene (Oosterbroek & Arntzen 1992; Andeweg 2002), the land connections between the Iberian Penı ´nsula and North Africa occurred during the Oligocene and most probably during the Miocene. So, the present distribution of Typhlocharis may be dated from 25–30 MY onwards. All species of this genus are eyeless (anophtal- mous), occur in soil and are endogean. They may also be collected on the bottom surface of stones more or less deeply buried in the soil. They move very slowly and are wingless cara- bids. The majority of species of Typhlocharis are local or regional endemisms with restricted dis- tributions, probably because of isolation by phy- sical barriers and a low dispersal ability. Thus, taking into account its present distribution, they represent a great potential for phylogeographic studies. In the last years the knowledge related with the systematics and distribution of representa- tives of the genus Typhlocharis from Portugal has considerably increased (Serrano & Aguiar Mitt. Mus. Nat.kd. Berl., Dtsch. entomol. Z. 53 (2006) 2, 223–234 / DOI 10.1002/mmnd.200600018 # 2006 WILEY-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim * Corresponding author: e-mail: aserrano@fc.ul.pt