ROPALOPUS UNGARICUS (HERBST, 1784)

Distribution: Europe (including European Russia and westernmost Turkey) and North Africa (Algeria, probably also Morocco and Tunisia) (Fig. 20).

This is a highly variable taxon that to date has been considered a separate species apart from R. insubricus (with its three subspecies), R. siculus and the newly described R. boreki sensu e.g. Danilevsky (2019a). Consequently, there was a difficult taxonomic situation, and many issues with both problematic specimens that show intermediate characters (and also probably some hybrids) and with determining the distribution of particular species in Europe, especially in countries such as Italy, France, Hungary and Greece. Other issues concern some described varieties, e.g. annulus and vogti, that were transferred between the taxa R. ungaricus and R. insubricus (Sama, 2002).

Therefore, all European populations are reduced to subspecific level under this species. The following subspecies are proposed herein, with the specified distribution.