Euglossa (Glossura) bazinga sp. n. (Hymenoptera: Apidae: Apinae, Apini, Euglossina), a new orchid bee from western Brazil, and designation of a lectotype for Euglossa (Glossura) ignita Smith, 1874
Author
Nemésio, André
Author
Ferrari, Rafael R.
text
Zootaxa
2012
3590
63
72
journal article
10.5281/zenodo.283170
db45f759-11cb-4327-895f-a657db8769b1
1175-5326
283170
Euglossa (Glossura) ignita
Smith, 1874
Euglossa ignita
Smith, 1874
: 444
.
Lectotype
male, present designation (see below), deposited at the British Museum of Natural History, accession number 17b950.
Type
locality:
Jamaica
, possibly in error. (Examined through eight high-quality photographs—six of them published in Nemésio, 2009: 124–126).
Euglossa bari
Dominique, 1898
: 58
.
Lectotype
male, deposited at the Muséum d’Histoire Naturelle de Nantes.
Type
locality: Íle Portal,
French Guiana
. Designated by
Rasmussen et al. (2007
: 60
). (not seen).
Euglossa ignita
var.
chlorosoma
Cockerell, 1918
: 688
.
Holotype
female. Deposited at the American Museum of Natural History.
Type
locality: Bartica District,
Guyana
. (seen).
Diagnosis.
Body length ca. 14.0 mm; head width ca. 5.0 mm; abdominal width ca.
5.5 mm
; clypeus green, upper frons green (
Figure 2
D); ivory paraocular markings well developed and complete, anterior surface of scape 2/3 ivory, rest of head green (
Figure 2
D), mandible bidentate, extended tongue exceeding body length; scutum and scutellum green (
Figure 2
B), punctures on scutellum circular, very sparse, with some micropunctures; posterior tuft of mesotibia trapezoidal; anterior tuft about the same size, triangular-oblong (
Figure 2
F); metatibia triangular, subacute (
Figure 2
H); T1–T7 green with golden hues (
Figure 2
B); punctation on T2 fine, sparse; denser on T3–T7; S2 with oblique slits that converge at the midline, with hairs located inside two long and deep depressions, forming tufts widely separated (
Figure 3
B, D, F).
Comments and
Lectotype
designation
.
Smith (1874)
indicated the “most highly coloured” specimen as that on which he based his description, but he also considered other specimens as members of this species, resulting, thus, in a syntypic series. Moure (1967), however, listed the specimen 17b950 deposited at the British Museum of Natural History (BMNH) as the “
holotype
”, a position followed by all authors since then. Presumably this specimen was illustrated in high-quality photographs in
Nemésio (2009a: 124–126)
. Moure’s (1967) action of listing this particular specimen as the
holotype
does not qualify as a valid
lectotype
designation under the Article 74.6 of the International Code of Zoological Nomenclature (hereafter the
Code
) (ICZN 1999), because it is clear, from Smith’s (1874) statement, that he used several specimens to describe the species. To be valid, a
lectotype
designation must be individual, explicit and use the word “
lectotype
” or an equivalent expression, and not ambiguous words as “the
type
” (see Articles 74.3 and 74.7.1 of the
Code
). Also, as shown above, Moure (1967) could not infer a
holotype
by monotypy because
Smith (1874)
clearly mentioned other specimens in the
type
series. In order to provide nomenclatural stability, since it is possible that additional specimens from the syntypic series (possibly found both in the BMNH and the Oxford University Museum collections; D. Notton, pers. comm.) are not conspecific with the species traditionally interpreted as
E. ignita
(Article 74.7.3 of the
Code
), we here designate as
lectotype
the specimen number 17b950, deposited in the BMNH and fully illustrated in
Nemésio (2009a: 124–126)
(see Recommendations 74A and 74B of the
Code
). The
type
locality (
Jamaica
), on the other hand, is considered by Roubik (see notes in
Nemésio & Rasmussen 2011
) as a possible label error, since this species has not been recorded from
Jamaica
after Smith’s (1874) description. Because the only other orchid bee known to occur on
Jamaica
is endemic, and
Jamaica
has had no connection to the mainland since the Miocene or earlier, the existence of
E. ignita
there requires verification. This species is widely distributed in lowland, humid areas in the Neotropics, from Central
America
to eastern
Brazil
and could have been an accidental introduction by trade ships but since extinct from
Jamaica
.