Gomphus pulchellus Sel. new to the Italian odonate fauna (Anisoptera: Gomphidae)

1984, one of us (W. Sch.) found a male dragonfly specimen labeled ”Gomphus pulchellus De Sdlys Rambur, Pedemontio”. This specimen is preserved in box number 8 of V. Ghiliani’s collection, a prominent Italian entomologist of the last century who is probably also the collector of the specimen. The collection is preserved in the Museo Civico e Istituto di Zoologta dell’Universitit, Turin, Italy. Even though the label gives no further information on date and locality of capture, ’’Pedemontio” is the old name for a region in northeastern Italy, now named Piemonte (Piedmont). The anal appendages of this specimen are reproduced in Figure 1. Gomphus pulchellus is a western European species which is quite common in Portugal, Spain and southern France; it becomes rarer in north/ northeastern France, Belgium, the Netherlands, in western Switzerland and in the northern and western parts of Germany (R.R. ASKEW, 1988, The dragonflies of Europe, Harley, Colchester), while it occurs locally in eastern Switzerland (KIAUTA, B. & M. KIAUTA, 1986, Ber. hot.- zool. Ges. Liechtenstein-Sargans-Werdenherg 15: 127-136) and in Liechtenstein (J. BIEDERMANN, 1990, ibid. 18: 219-233).