Biodiversity Journal, 2020, 11 (4): 969–974 Emergence trap for woodpile insects provides two interesting species of Neuropterida from Sardinia Roberto Rattu 1 , Roberto A. Pantaleoni 2,3,* & Rinaldo Nicoli Aldini 4 1 Via del Pozzetto 1 - 09126 Cagliari, Italy; e-mail: robertorattu@libero.it 2 Dipartimento di Agraria, sezione di Entomologia, Università degli Studi di Sassari, Via Enrico de Nicola - 07100 Sassari, Italy; e-mail: pantaleo@uniss.it; robertoapantaleoni@gmail.com 3 Istituto di Ricerca sugli Ecosistemi Terrestri, Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche (IRET–CNR), Traversa la Crucca 3, Regione Baldinca - 07100 Li Punti, Sassari, Italy 4 Dipartimento di Scienze delle Produzioni Vegetali Sostenibili (Di.Pro.Ve.S.), Area ‘Protezione sostenibile delle piante e degli alimenti’, Facoltà di Scienze Agrarie, Alimentari e Ambientali, Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore, via Emilia Parmense 84 - 29122 Piacenza, Italy; e-mail: rinaldo.nicoli@unicatt.it * Corresponding author ABSTRACT Received 30.08.2020; accepted 01.12.2020; published online 23.12.2020 An emergence trap for woodpile insects, assembled in the coppice holm oak forest of San Gre- gorio (SE-Sardinia), captured few specimens of only two species of Neuropterida, but these were very interesting ones: Isoscelipteron glaserellum (U. Aspöck, H. Aspöck et Hölzel, 1979) (Neuroptera Berothidae), new to Italy, and Dendroleon pantherinus (Fabricius, 1787) (Neu- roptera Myrmeleontidae), new to Sardinia. Further specimens of both species were collected at the same site using other methods. An old find of Dendroleon pantherinus, previously con- sidered unreliable, was confirmed. The ecology and rarity of both species are discussed. INTRODUCTION Some insect species are considered rare because they are indeed rare in collections, but often their true rarity is questionable. Years ago, when defining pseudo-rarity, Gaston (1994: cfr. §2.5.2) wrote: “Species may appear to be rare because methods appropriate to determining their true abundances and range sizes have not been applied, have not been applied in the right place, or have not been applied at the right time”. Confirming this obvious affirmation, much anecdotal evidence but few pub- lished papers (e.g., Duelli et al., 2006) exist for Neuropterida. Species living in the canopy, or hav- ing larvae which live concealed together with adults with a very short flying period, are typically appar- ently rare species. This pseudo-rarity is evident for adults which are not regularly captured using the more frequent sampling methods applied to Neu- ropterida (beating, sweeping, light-trapping). Meth- ods applied for other insect orders sometimes permit collection of very interesting taxa among Neuropterida; a paradigmatic example is the dis- covery by Ghilarov (1962) from soil samples of the first Dilaridae larva living in soil. Thanks to one of the authors (RR), an emergence trap for insects coming out from freshly cut fire- wood unexpectedly captured two species of Neuropterida new to Sardinia: Isoscelipteron glaserellum (U. Aspöck, H. Aspöck et Hölzel, 1979) KEY WORDS Isoscelipteron glaserellum; Berothidae; Dendroleon pantherinus; Myrmeleontidae; geographic distribution. https://doi.org/10.31396/Biodiv.Jour.2020.11.4.969.974