Documenting museum records of West African Coccinellidae (Coleoptera) in Benin and Senegal

Abstract. BACKGROUND: This work provides a preliminary inventory of West African Coccinellidae. This was based on the West African Coccinellidae (WAC) specimens in the holdings of insect collections at the Laboratoire de Zoologie des Invertébrés Terrestres at the Institut Fondamental d’Afrique Noire Cheikh Anta Diop (IFAN), Senegal and the Biodiversity Center at the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture (IITAB), Benin. NEW INFORMATION: A total of 129 species representing 11 tribes and 40 genera is reported, including one species of the subfamily Microweiseinae and 128 species of the subfamily Coccinellinae. The geographic distribution of collection localities is presented for these species. Cheilomenes lunata (Fabricius, 1775), Cheilomenes propinqua (Mulsant, 1850), Cheilomenes sulphurea (Olivier, 1791), Chnootriba elaterii (Rossi, 1794), Chnootriba similis (Thunberg, 1781), Exochomus laeviusculus Weise, 1909, Hyperaspis delicatula (Mulsant, 1850) and Hyperaspis pumila Mulsant, 1850 are the best represented species in these collections.