Fróðskaparrit - 01.01.1998, Síða 286

292
LATE HOLOCENE INSECT FAUNAS FROM MYKINES, FAROEISLANDS, WITH
OBSERVATIONS ON ASSOCIATED POLLEN AND EARLY SETTLEMENT RECORDS
Taxon
1.26 1.31 1.36
1.31
Carabidae
TrechusobtitsusEr. 1
Patrobus septentrionis (Dej.)
Patrobus sp. I
Calathussj).
Hydrophilidae
Cercyon cf. haemorrhoidalis (F.)_____5
Megasternum boletophagum (Marsh.)
Anacaena globulus (Payk.) I
Ptiliidae
Acrotrichis sp. 2
Staphylinidae
Olophrum fuscum (Grav. j 2
Eucnecosum brachypterum (Grav.)
Lestevasp.
Omaliinae indet
Stenus spp.
Lathrobium brunnipes (F.)
Othius punctulatus (Goez.) 4
O. angustus Steph. 1
Othius sp.
Quedius umbrinus Er. 1
Quedius sp,__ 1
Quedius / Philonthus spp.
Tachinus sp. 1
Curculionidae
Apion haematodes (Kirby) 1
Otiorhynchus nodosus (Miill.) 1
Tropiphorus obtusus (Bons.)_
1.36 1.41
'í r
4____2
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34 19
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3
3 4
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1
I
4
5
3 _ 2
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3
4 1
7’al)fe 2: Fossil insect remains from Uldalíð, Mykines,
Faroe Islands. (Depths arefrom modern ground
surface).
Talva 2. Steinrenningar av skordýraleivdum úr Ulda-
líð í Mykinesi. (Dýpdin er frá jarðaryvirflatanum í
dag).
able to relocate and identify in the field as
providing the comparable position (a dark
band of peat where Plantago maritima first
appears) with the supposed pre-Norse land-
nám layer at Lambi. Three 3 kg samples
were taken as 5 cm slices and returned to
Britain for processing for fossil insect re-
mains.
Samples were disaggregated in hot water
and washed out over a 300 pm sieve. The
material retained on the sieve was then sub-
jected to paraffm (kerosene) flotation
(Coope and Osborne 1968), cleaned, and
sorted in alcohol under a binocular micro-
scope. The resultant concentrated insect re-
mains were identified using a comprehen-
sive reference collection of Faroese and
North European Coleoptera. Preservation
of insects was very variable and the same
sample frequently contained heavily erod-
ed fragments, difficult to identify, and well
preserved heads, pronota and elytra. Table
2 lists the taxa identified from the site; tax-
onomy follows Lucht (1987).
Results and comments on the insect,
pollen and dating evidence
The paucity of phytophages in the Faroese
beetle fauna limits correlation between in-
sect and pollen evidence, but the weevil
Apion haematodes Kirby (= frumentarium
(Payk.)) is supposedly restricted to Rumex
acetosella (sheep’s sorrel) breeding in the
rootstock (e.g. Morris, 1990; Koch 1992).
This may present an enigma in that R. ace-
tosella was not reported from any of
Jóhansen’s pollen diagrams. However, we
have founđ it at Hoydalar (46 km from the
site), Skælingsvatn, Toftanes and Haga-
mýra (Fig. 1), and the plant, while not re-
ported in Jóhansen (1985) is recorded by
Hansen (1966). Whether R. acetosella
pollen is misidentified under the R. acetosa
curve for Uldalíð (where it reaches about
5%) or Lambi (where it attains a massive
>95%) is unknown, although Jóhansen
(1975) identifies them as separate pollen
taxa in his Shetland site at Murraster.