On the species-group taxa of Taiwanese social wasps (Hymenoptera: Vespidae) described and / or treated by J. Sonan Author Kojima, Jun-Ichi Author Saito, Fuki Author Nguyen, Lien Thi Phuong text Zootaxa 2011 2920 42 64 journal article 46640 10.5281/zenodo.201805 f9385d5f-2207-403f-b7e9-4bd5440581be 1175-5326 201805 Vespa magnifica var. nobilis Sonan 1929 [ Vespa mandarinia Smith 1852 ] Type material. Sonan (1929: 140) described this nominal taxon with the designation of the queen with the collection data “Musha, 4.VI.1927 (Coll. J. Sonan)” as the HOLOTYPE , which is in TARI and has labels of “Musha / 4-VI-1927 / Col. J. Sonan” and “ Vespa mandarinia / F. Smith / Det. Starr, 1990”. He listed the following specimens designated as PARATYPES (the specimens we have successfully located in TARI are given in brackets with the label data): 1 worker , Arisan, 19.VI.1914 (Coll. M. Maki) [ 1 queen , “ IV 1914 / Arisan / Col. M. Kato”; this specimen might not be a paratype ]; 1 queen , Horisha, V–VIII.1918 (Cool. M. Kawamura) [ 1 worker (queen?), “ Formosa / Horisha, -18, / V–VIII. / H. Kawamura”]; 1 worker , Horisha, 20.V.1908 (Coll. I. Nitobe); 2 queens, Musha, 18.V.1919 (T. Okuni, J. Sonan, K. Miyake, M. Yoshino) [ 1 queen , “ Formosa / Musha 1919 / V.18–VI.15 / T. Okuni, J. Sonan, / K. Miy., M. Yosh.”]; 2 queens, no locality given, 26.V.1927 (Coll. K. Fukuda) [ 1 queen , “Musha / 26.V.1927 / Col. K Fukuda”]; 2 queens, Namakaban, 19.IX.1924 (Coll. T. Shiraki, J. Sonan) [ 1 worker (queen?), “Namakaban / 19.IX.1924 /T. Shiraki / J. Sonan”]; 1 queen , Rakuraku, 11.IX.1924 (Coll. T. Shiraki, J. Sonan) [ 1 worker (queen?), “Rakurku / 11.IX.1924 / T. Shiraki / J. Sonan”]; 1 worker , Rimogan, 8.XI.1928 (Coll. J. Sonan) [ 1 worker , “RIMOGAN / 8-XI-1928 / Col. J. Sonan”]; 2 workers , Tompo, 10.IV.1924 (T. Shiraki, J. Sonan) [ 2 workers , “Tompo / 10.IV.1924 / T. Shiraki / J. Sonan”]. Van der Vecht (1959: 220) treated this nominal taxon as a subspecies of V. mandarinia , and Archer (1995) proposed to replace “ nobilis ” as the name of a subspecies of V. mandarinia with the informal color form name “Taiwanese”. By listing “ Vespa magnifica Smith var. nobilis Sonan, 1929 ” in the synonym list of V. mandarinia , Starr (1992) has synonymized it under V. mandarinia ; judging from the labels attached to the holotype , C. Starr examined the holotype before the manuscript of his article ( Starr 1992 ) was prepared.