Phytocoris (Exophytocoris) scituloides Lindberg, 1948

Çerçi, Barış, Koçak, Özgür & Tezcan, Serdar, 2024, Review of the Heteroptera (Hemiptera) fauna of Turkey: perspectives for future research, European Journal of Taxonomy 937, pp. 1-127 : 20

Phytocoris (Exophytocoris) scituloides Lindberg, 1948

Material examined

Phytocoris (Exophytocoris) pinihalepensis

TURKEY – İzmIr ProvInce • 1 ♀; Kemalpaşa; 8 Jun. 1968; F. Önder leg.; LEMT .

Phytocoris (Exophytocoris) scitulus scitulus

TURKEY – İstanbul ProvInce • 2 ♂♂; Merkez; 4–11 Aug. 1925; Miss G. Edwards leg.; British Natural History Museum coll.; LEMT . – Mersin Province • 1 ♂, 1 ♀; Silifke; 3 Jun. 1972; F. Önder leg.; LEMT .

Comments

This species was recorded from Antalya, İstanbul, İzmir and Mersin by Önder (1976). Pagola-Carte & Rieger (2021) argued that the records of this species from Turkey most probably referred to other closely related species that occur in this region, e.g., Phytocoris carapezzai Çerçi, Koçak & Tezcan, 2019 , or undescribed new species. Accordingly, our re-examination of the voucher specimens revealed that these records refer to other species. The record from İzmir refers to P. (E.) pinihalepensis Lindberg, 1948 and the records from İstanbul and Mersin refer to P. (E.) scitulus scitulus Reuter, 1908 . Unfortunately, the voucher specimen belonging to the record from Antalya could not be located in LEMT. However, considering these erroneous identifications, combined with lack of genital examinations in species identification during that period, we strongly believe that the missing specimens also belonged to species other than P. scituloides . Therefore, this species is excluded from the Heteroptera checklist of Turkey.