Fabrician types of Cassidinae (Coleoptera: Chrysomelidae) deposited in the Natural History Museum, London
Author
Sekerka, Lukáš
Department of Entomology, National Museum, Prague, Cirkusová 1740, CZ- 193 00, Praha, Czech Republic & Department of Zoology, Faculty of Science, University of South Bohemia, Branišovská 31, CZ- 370 05, ýeské BudČjovice, Czech Republic
sagrinae@seznam.cz
Author
Barclay, Maxwell V. L.
The Natural History Museum, Cromwell Rd, London SW 7 5 BD, United Kingdom
m.barclay@nhm.ac.uk
text
Acta Entomologica Musei Nationalis Pragae
2014
2014-12-15
54
2
657
684
journal article
20305
10.5281/zenodo.5302244
f2b4ae7c-2446-4042-b918-73e3bbf624f3
0374-1036
5302244
A31F43C0-F570-40B1-9C7B-E672FDBCE1BFD
Cassida cribraria
Fabricius, 1775
(
Figs 7–9
)
Cassida cribraria
Fabricius, 1775: 90
.
Type
locality.
‘America’.
Type material examined.
LECTOTYPE
(hereby designated):
♀
(specimen with large spots on elytra), pinned, ‘
Cassida cribraria
| Fab. Entom. p. [printed] 90. n. 9. [w, hw, s, bf]’ (
BMNH
).
PARALECTOTYPE
:
♀
(specimen with small spots), without label and pinned next to the
lectotype
(
BMNH
). Both specimens are provided with an additional label: ‘
LECTOTYPUS
[or
PARALECTOTYPUS
, respectively] |
Cassida
| cribraria |
Fabricius, 1775
| L. Sekerka & | M.V.L. Barclay des. 2014 [r, p, cb]’.
Status in
ZIMSEN (1964)
.
P. 90; No. 1315. ‘London,
2 specimens
(Kiel
1 specimen
)’.
Original description.
‘C. rufescens, thorace punctis quatuor, elytris numerioris, nigris, clypeo emarginato. Habitat in America. Mus. Dom.
Banks
.
Statura nostratum, at paulo major. Antennae apice nigrae. Clypeus emarginatus, rufescens, punctis quatuor dorsalibus nigris. Elytra laevia, gibba, rufescentia, punctis numerosis sparsis. Corpus nigrum.’ (
FABRICIUS 1775
).
Current status.
New junior objective synonym of
Chelymorpha cassidea
(
Fabricius, 1775
)
.
Remarks.
FABRICIUS (1775)
proposed the species based on specimen(s) with four black spots on the pronotum and red elytra with black spots and black ventrites.
BOHEMAN (1854)
transferred the species to
Chelymorpha
Chevrolat, 1836
and used the name for South American specimens having the pronotum with two small spots and the elytra with numerous small black specks.
ZIMSEN (1964)
reported
three specimens
, two in the BMNH and one in JFUK (the latter placed in parentheses). The JFUK specimen is in accordance with BOHEMANތ s (1854) concept of
C. cribraria
, but, it does not agree with the original description.
Chelymorpha cribraria
as de¿ned and used since
BOHEMAN (1854)
is a very variable species, but the ¿rst author has never examined a specimen having four spots on pronotum in combination with numerous small black spots on the elytra, although
BOHEMAN (1854)
mentioned such a colour form as ‘var. A’. Some populations have four irregular spots on the pronotum but these have a more or less black disc of the elytra. Moreover,
C. cribraria
sensu Boheman
always has at least a slightly reddish or rust-coloured underside, like the JFUK specimen, but unlike the original description (
FABRICIUS 1775
) which mentions a black underside. Therefore we do not consider the JFUK specimen as part of the
type
series.
The two BMNH specimens agree with the original description having black body, red dorsum, and the pronotum with four black spots. What Fabricius meant by ‘[elytra] punctis numerosis sparsis’ is questionable, since both specimens have each elytron with six spots and one common postscutellar spot. One specimen has these spots large and the other smaller, but still, the spots are at least sparsely distributed. In such cases Fabricius usually (though not always) gave a precise number of spots. Other characters are fully in accordance with the original description, and indeed 13 spots may be considered ‘numerous’, so we consider both specimens to be
syntypes
. Both specimens are conspeci¿c with
Chelymorpha cassidea
(
Fabricius, 1775
)
described in the same work as
C. cribraria
but in the genus
Coccinella
Linnaeus, 1758
. We retain the name
C. cassidea
as valid with
C. cribraria
as its junior synonym following the First Reviser Principle, Article 24.2.1 of the Code (
ICZN 1999
), because
C. cassidea
has been correctly applied and refers to a common North American species (see further comments under
Coccinella cassidea
).
As we stated above,
C. cassidea
is a very variable species having several more or less distinct local races in the
USA
and the two Banks specimens of
C. cribraria
belong to different populations. Therefore we designate as the
lectotype
the specimen with larger elytral spots which represents the most common North American population, also characterized by ¿ne punctation of the elytra. The other specimen has, except for smaller spots, distinctly coarser punctation thus certainly came from a different locality.
Due to the new synonymy, the taxon identi¿ed until now as
Chelymorpha cribraria
loses its name, and thus following the Code (
ICZN 1999
), the oldest available synonym
Chelymorpha multipunctata
(Olivier, 1790)
becomes the valid name. This species was also designated as the
type
species of the genus
Chelymorpha
by
DUPONCHEL & CHEVROLAT (1843)
.