The ground beetles (Coleoptera, Carabidae) of southern Kuril Islands, Russia

BACKGROUND: We compiled a list of the ground beetles that have been confirmed to occur to date in the southern Kuril Islands, Russian Far East. The list includes 168 species, all of which are known from Kunashir Island and the species richness on the remaining islands ranges from 68 (Shikotan Island) to 21 species (Tanfil'eva Island). The species richness is shown to depend sublinearly on island area, this being unusual for island faunas (Triantis et al. 2011). NEW INFORMATION: A large part of data is published here for the first time on the records of ground beetles in the southern Kuril Islands with precise localities. This allows not only the taxonomic composition of the faunas, but also the composition of local faunas to be discussed.