A taxonomic note on Erionota acroleuca (Wood-Mason & de Nicéville, 1881) stat. rest. (Lepidoptera: Hesperiidae)
Author
Xue, Guo-Xi
Author
Lo, Yik Fui Philip
text
Zootaxa
2015
3926
3
445
447
journal article
10.11646/zootaxa.3926.3.9
39b01cba-638e-45d5-8fbd-c5dd14bbda8d
1175-5326
246016
B63B9EAA-9C82-4258-BFD6-CBAD91BF68A4
Erionota acroleuca
(Wood-Mason & de Nicéville, 1881), stat. rest.
Telegonus acroleucus
Wood-Mason
& de Nicéville, 1881(Aug.): 143 (original description).
Hesperia hiraca
Moore, 1881
(Sept.)
: 313 (original description).
Hesperia acroleuca
: Wood-Mason
& de Nicéville (
1881 Dec.
: 260) (synonyms, description).
Teligonus lara
Swinhoe, 1890
: 365
(original description).
Erionota acroleuca
:
Watson (1891: 107)
(name list);
Evans (1941: 159)
(description, synonyms, subspecies);
Evans (1949: 327)
(description, synonyms, subspecies).
Erionota thrax acroleuca
:
Evans (1927: 440)
(description, distribution, synonyms);
Evans (1932: 373)
(description, distribution, synonyms);
Khatri (1993: 184)
(name list).
Erionota hiraca
: de
Jong & Treadaway (1992: 134)
(description); de
Jong & Treadaway (2007: 47)
(nomenclature, distribution, variation);
Ek-Amnuay
et al
. (2007
: 16
) (nomenclature); de
Jong & Treadaway (2008: 10)
(distribution);
Mohanraj & Veenakumari (2011: 6)
(checklist, distribution).
Remarks.
The date of publication printed on the paper which originally described
acroleuca
is “August, 1881” (Wood- Mason & de Nicéville
1881 Aug.
). While
Bridges (1988)
recorded the publication date of this name as October, 1881, and that of
hiraca
as September, 1881. According to this record, de
Jong & Treadaway (1992)
shifted the priority from
acroleuca
to
hiraca
, this treatment continued in their subsequent works (de
Jong & Treadaway 2007
,
2008
), and was also followed by others (e.g.
Devyatkin & Monastyrskii 1999
;
Kitamura 2003
;
Ek-Amnuay
et al
. 2007
;
Mohanraj & Veenakumari 2011
). But: 1) in a paper issued on
21 December
, 1881, Wood-Mason & de Nicéville described
acroleucus
again in a more detailed way under the name “
Hesperia acroleuca
”, they even gave a one-month priority of their name
acroleucus
(August)
over Moore’s
hiraca
(September)
. 2) the “letter code” assigned to
acroleucus
in
Bridges (1988
,
1994
) is “a”, meaning “available valid species name”, and that to
hiraca
is “c” meaning “synonym”; the name
hiraca
is clearly recorded as “SS:
acroleucus
(Wood-Mason & de Nicéville), 1881” with a note “Close, September versus August”, indicating that
hiraca
is a junior synonym of
acroleucus
because of one month behind in publication.
3
) The library of the Natural History Museum in London confirmed that the original paper of
acroleucus
was published in
August 1881
. Thus, according to Chapter 5 (Articles 21 and 22) of the International Code of Zoological Nomenclature (Fourth Edition), the date of publication of the original paper introducing
acroleuca
should be accepted as [
31 August
] 1881. The nomenclatural act by de
Jong & Treadaway (1992)
, which has caused a misapplication of
hiraca
and threatened the stability of
acroleuca
, should be corrected. Therefore, we restore
acroleuca
to a valid name, and submerge
hiraca
herein.