On the identity of Orthomus hespericus Motschulsky, 1849 (Coleoptera: Carabidae: Pterostichini) Author Guéorguiev, Borislav National Museum of Natural History, 1 Blvd. Tzar Osvoboditel, 1000 Sofia, Bulgaria. Author Wrase, David W. Dunckerstr. 78, D- 10437 Berlin, Germany. E-mail: carterus @ gmx. de Corresponding Author: Borislav Guéorguiev (E-mail: gueorguiev @ nmnhs. com) text Ecologica Montenegrina 2016 2016-01-19 5 28 34 journal article 53722 10.37828/em.2016.5.5 4b045eb1-583c-48d6-9f40-c6b24b9a263f 2336-9744 8032633 Orthomus berytensis (Reiche & Saulcy, 1855) Feronia ( Argutor ) rectangulus Fairmaire, 1859 , described from Batna , Algeria , probably is to fall into synonymy with another species of Orthomus , rather than with O . barbarus barbarus , though it was recently provisionally placed under the last taxon (see Guéorguiev et al. 2014: 40 , Note 1). According to the present knowledge ( Bousquet 2003 ; Pupier & Coulon 2013 ), the latter species does not occur outside Europe, so it makes no sense to let the former in synonymy with O . barbarus . The scanty description of F . rectangulus fits well on that of O . berytensis . A study of specimens of the latter species, all coming from central and eastern Algeria , showed that the taxon in question could be better provisionally inserted as possible synonym to it, rather than to other congeners from Algeria . Judging from the description, F . rectangulus seems distinct from the taxa of the “ O. rubicundus ” group (see Wrase & Jeanne 2005 ) by its total body size ( 9.5 mm ). The largest species of this group from Algeria and Tunisia is O. aquila (Coquerel, 1859) , with a body size of 7.1-9.1 mm . In any way, the type locality of the taxon described by Fairmaire falls well into the wide distribution range of O . berytensis , which lives also in Algeria in its central and eastern parts. Because of that it seems reasonable to us to treat F . rectangulus as probable junior subjective synonym of O . berytensis . Recently, Lorenz (2005: 265) noted that the name rectangulus proposed by Fairmaire (1859 : li) is a junior secondary homonym of the name rectangulus proposed by Cuvier (1833: 194) . This should be incorrect as the original binomen of the latter is Carabus rectangulus , now a junior subjective synonym of Abax parallelus parallelus (Duftschmid, 1812) (see Bousquet 2003: 470 ; Lorenz 2005: 292 ), while the original binomen of the name proposed by Fairmaire (1859) is Feronia rectangula . At present, both binominal names concern different valid genera – the former Abax Bonelli, 1810 , and the latter Orthomus , hence this case does not apply to Article 57.3 of the Code ( ICZN 1999 ).