Anabaxis electrica King, 1863

Shen, Jia-Wei & Leschen, Richard A. B., 2018, Review and clinal variation of New Zealand Anabaxis Raffray (Coleoptera: Staphylinidae: Pselaphinae: Goniaceritae), Zootaxa 4382 (3), pp. 531-552 : 541

Anabaxis electrica King, 1863

( Fig. 6C )

Bryaxis electrica King, 1863: 48 .

Rybaxis electrica Raffray, 1900: 161 . Redescription.

Anabaxis minor Broun, 1921: 519 . Synonymized by Kuschel 1900: 76 (type not examined). Anabaxis electrica: Kuschel 1900: 76 .

Type locality. Parramatta , Australia.

Notes. In his description King (1863) noted that this species that been found “on fences at sunset when the air is charged with electricity; when a thunderstorm is rising of an evening it may almost certainly be looked for on the summit of my paling fence”. He did not mention the number of specimens, and we examined five specimens mounted in two rows on the same card from AMS that had ‘Holotype’ written on the card. Based on the poor condition of the specimens we did not attempt to remount the series and have designated the upper left male specimen as the lectotype and the rest, apart from the right bottom (which is Anabaxis lunatica ) as paralectotypes. Raffray (1900) redescribed the species, with a question mark at the species heading, from specimens collected at Swan River in Western Australia, Tasmania, and an unknown locality. These are doubtfully conspecific with A. electrica . Kuschel (1990) synonymized Anabaxis minor Broun with A. electrica , but we were unable to examine the type specimen of the former species, and the synonymy is in doubt. An image of A. minor was provided by C. Carlton from what may be the type series. The photograph is of a female, which appears to be a specimen of A. brevis that has the typical short and flattened abdomen of this species. All of the specimens we examined that were collected from New Zealand and were labeled as A. electrica are A. brevis .

Type material examined: Anabaxis electrica . Lectotype (here designated, the upper left specimen on the card) (AMS): ‘n 22503 [hand] // Bryaxis electrica [hand] // Anabaxis electrica (King) [hand], Kuschel det.1976 [printed] // Holotype [red rectangular label] // K 209154’. Paralectotypes (here designated, the second and third specimens on the first row and the first specimen on the second row) (AMS): same data as the lectotype.

Figures

FIGURE 6. Primary type specimens and labels of Anabaxis Raffray, 1908. A) Lectotype, Anabaxis brevis Oke, 1928. B) Lectotype, Anabaxis foveolata Broun, 1880. C) Lectotype, Anabaxis electrica King, 1863. D) Lectotype, Anabaxis inusitata Blackburn, 1891. Scale bar: 0.3 mm.