Revision of Limnocoris (Heteroptera: Nepomorpha: Naucoridae) of North America
Author
Rodrigues, Higor D. D.
Author
Sites, Robert W.
text
Zootaxa
2019
2019-07-09
4629
4
451
497
journal article
26265
10.11646/zootaxa.4629.4.1
4d76ea5b-ee7f-4361-8f18-595631a770e6
1175-5326
3274050
0DB18F90-AAFD-4FB7-B1ED-09A86A707C9F
Limnocoris profundus
(Say)
Naucoris profunda
Say, 1832: 363
(original description).
Borborocoris profundus
:
Stål 1862: 461
(new combination).
Limnocoris profundus
:
Stål 1876: 145
(new combination);
Uhler 1886: 28
(catalog);
Torre-Bueno 1906: 52
(catalog);
Kirkaldy
& Torre-Bueno 1909: 183 (catalog);
La Rivers 1971: 76
(catalog, synonymy);
La Rivers 1974: 10
(catalog, synonymy);
La
Rivers 1976: 12–13 (catalog);
Nieser & López-Ruf 2001: 319
(catalog).
Discussion.
Naucoris profunda
Say, 1832
was described from material collected in
Mexico
, but the number of specimens in the
type
series was not given. In his study on the
Hemiptera
of
Mexico
,
Stål (1862)
transferred
N. profunda
to the genus he had recently created,
Borborocoris
Stål, 1861
, and modified the specific epithet to agree with the genus:
B. profundus
(Say)
. Later,
Stål (1876)
transferred
B. profundus
to the genus
Limnocoris
and recorded this species from
Venezuela
.
Montandon (1897)
had access to the collection of C. Stål, deposited in the Swedish Museum of Natural History, for his revision of
Limnocorinae
. He noted the specimens identified by
Stål (1876)
as
L. profundus
from
Venezuela
belonged to another species, which he described in the revision as
L. stali
Montandon, 1897
. In addition to the specimens from
Venezuela
, the
type
series of
L. stali
comprised specimens from
Bolivia
,
Guatemala
and “N.lle
Grenade
, Ocana” [
Colombia
]. Montandon noted that he did not examine any specimens with the characters given in the original description of
L. profundus
(probably he did not have access to
type
material of
L. profundus
); thus, he left aside
L. profundus
and described the species he had as new. Among the species described by Montandon,
L. signoreti
was described based on specimens from
Mexico
previously identified as
L. profundus
by the French entomologist Victor Signoret (
1816–1889
).
The revision of
Montandon (1897)
resulted in
L. profundus
and
L. signoreti
from
Mexico
, and
L. stali
from
Bolivia
,
Colombia
,
Guatemala
, and
Venezuela
, which were subsequently cited in the catalogs of
Torre-Bueno (1906)
and
Kirkaldy & Torre-Bueno (1909)
.
La Rivers (1971
,
1974
) in his catalogs of
Naucoridae
proposed
L. stali
as a junior synonym of
L. profundus
. However, in the second supplement to the catalog of the family,
La Rivers (1976)
discounted the synonymy between these species, and provided the following comment: “
L. profundus
has been used twice—first by Say in 1832, then by Stål in 1862. Montandon re-named Stål’s species
stali
in 1897. Stål was aware of Say’s species, but described his
profundus
in the genus
Borborocoris
, which later became a syn. of
Limnocoris
.” However,
Stål (1862)
did not describe a new species, but simply transferred
Naucoris profunda
to
Borborocoris
.
Although much of Thomas Say’s collection is known to have been lost, we searched for specimens that could be of the type series of
L. profundus
(Say)
in American and European collections, but were unsuccessful.
Mawdsley (1993)
provided a list of remaining specimens from the collection of Thomas Say deposited in the Museum of Comparative Zoology, Harvard University (MCZC), which included no specimens of
Naucoridae
. Nieser & López- Ruf (2001) provided a list of species of
Limnocoris
with their primary type depositories, and indicated that the
L. profundus
holotype
was deposited in the USNM; however, this was refuted by Thomas Henry (pers. comm.), curator of
Hemiptera
at the USNM. Unfortunately, the type series of
Limnocoris profundus
(Say, 1832)
apparently is lost as are many other Say types, and the original description is insufficient to establish the identity of the species. We hence treat
L. profundus
(Say)
as a
nomen dubium.