Rotund Fungus Beetle (Valenfriesia rotundata)

The Rotund Fungus Beetle was described in 1877; the species was restricted to the island of Saint Helena in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean.

The species appears to have already been extremely rare when it was discovered.:

“The only two examples of this most interesting little Notioxenus which I have yet seen are from the high central ridge, in the immediate vicinity of Actaeon and Diana’s Peak, – the first of them having been captured by Mr. Gray, and the other by myself. It is evidently, therefore, one of the rarest of the St. Helena Coleoptera.” [1]

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The Rotund Fungus Beetle was last recorded in the 1970, when a single specimen was collected in at High Peak, it could not be recorded in recent searches and is thus most likely extinct. [2]

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References:

[1] T. Vernon Wollaston: Coleoptera Sanctae-Helenae. London: John Van Voorst, Paternoster Row 1877 
[2] Howard Mendel; Philip Ashmole; Myrtle Ashmole: Invertebrates of the Central Peaks and Peak Dale, St. Helena. Report for the St Helena National Trust, Jamestown 2008

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edited: 26.05.2021