On the types species of the New World dung beetle genus Canthidium Erichson, 1847 (Coleoptera: Scarabaeidae: Scarabaeinae), with an annotated checklist of species
Author
Cupello, Mario
text
Zootaxa
2018
2018-03-06
4388
4
451
486
journal article
30595
10.11646/zootaxa.4388.4.1
a884362d-a9f8-4cee-8cd4-dcf59a73ede2
1175-5326
1189072
7A57C29B-6B16-445E-A8D7-750C736E6B42
Canthidium melanocephalum
(Olivier, 1789)
Scarabaeus melanocephalus
Olivier, 1789: 173
,
Melolontha
plate 2, fig. 18 [transferred to
Canthidium
by
Harold 1867a
: 29. Olivier (1789) remarked that the inclusion of
S. melanocephalus
figure in a plate with
Melolontha
species instead of one with other
Scarabaeus
was a mistake].
Type
locality:
Unknown [originally cited by Olivier (1789) as being the Caribbean island of
Guadeloupe
, but, as noted earlier by Matthews (1966), this record is certainly erroneous since no
Canthidium
species are known to occur in the Antilles. The collector of the
type
series, according to Olivier (1789), was the French planter Barthélemy de Badier (1740?–1789). Badier lived for several years in
Guadeloupe
(
Bourguet 2005
), but also received specimens from other French territories in the Caribbean and South America (see Lacépède 1789: 121, footnote b).
Harold (1867a)
ignored Olivier’s original locality and noted that this “fairly common species” occurred exclusively in
Brazil
. Harold’s (1867a) position was followed in
Harold (1869a)
and
Gillet (1911)
, but
Blackwelder (1944)
revisited the matter and considered the presence in
Brazil
as dubious. Finally, Vaz-de-Mello (2000) did not include
C. melanocephalum
in his checklist of the Brazilian dung beetles and therefore, both the
type
locality and the geographical distribution of this species are dubious].
Type
material:
Location of
syntypes
unknown, possibly in the MNHN [according to Olivier (1789), the
type
series was donated to him by Badier. Since part of the Olivier collection still survives in the MNHN (
Horn & Kahle 1936
;
Evenhuis 1997b
), it is possible that at least some
syntypes
of
S. melanocephalus
are housed there].
Distribution:
Unknown [see comments above on the
type
locality].