60% of tiger beetles exist in only one country — what the endemism data reveals

Open the Cicindelidae matrix and sort by Countries_count == 1. The result: 2,250 species — 60.5% of the entire family — are known from a single country. For a taxon of nearly 3,700 species, this is an extraordinary concentration of range restriction.

Where endemism concentrates

Single-country endemism in Cicindelidae is not evenly distributed. The Oriental region leads with 700 endemic species — driven by the extreme island and mountain fragmentation of Southeast Asia. Borneo, Sulawesi, the Philippines, and Sri Lanka each have substantial endemic Cicindelidae faunas that share no species with adjacent landmasses.

The Afrotropical region contributes 491 single-country endemics, concentrated in the montane forests of the East African Rift and the Cape Floristic Region of South Africa. The Neotropical region adds 370 — largely Amazonian species known only from type localities with no subsequent collecting.

What endemism means for conservation

A species with a single-country range is, by definition, one political boundary away from global extinction. For Cicindelidae, which are sensitive bioindicators of habitat quality — particularly for open, disturbed, and transitional habitats — this concentration of range restriction has direct conservation implications.

The 2,250 single-country species include known endangered taxa (multiple Cicindela species in the US, several Hawaiian Cicindela now presumed extinct) alongside hundreds of species last recorded from type localities in the 19th century and not seen since. Many may already be extinct; the matrix records conservation status as NE (Not Evaluated) for over 95% of species.

The data gap

Single-country range does not necessarily mean genuinely restricted distribution — it often means insufficiently collected. Many Oriental and Neotropical species are known from single specimens in museum collections, collected once, described, and never re-found. The matrix records 1,483 species with iNaturalist observations, suggesting a substantial "dark fauna" of species that exist but haven't been observed in the citizen science era.