Hylodes augusti Dugès, 1879

Flores-Villela, Oscar, Ríos-Muñoz, César A., Magaña-Cota, Gloria E. & Quezadas-Tapia, Néstor L., 2016, Alfredo Dugès’ type specimens of amphibians and reptiles revisited, Zootaxa 4092 (1) : 34-35

Hylodes augusti Dugès, 1879 a

The species was originally described by Dugès (1879a) based on an abbreviated version of a manuscript he wrote in 1868, the latter being published in its entirely by Brocchi (1881). The original description of 1879 makes reference to only one specimen from Guanajuato, Mexico (Dugès 1879a:21–22).

Brocchi’s (1881) expanded version of Dugès’ manuscript of August 1868, was based apparently on two specimens, although since there was only one specimen noted in the original description of 1879a, the second specimen has no status as a type. Additionally, there are measurements for one specimen and illustrations in plate 16 figures 1, 1a–1d of Brocchi (1881). It is important to note that plate 16 was not published until 1883 (Smith & Smith 1973).

Smith & Necker (1943:201) stated that “…The original description was apparently based upon three cotypes…” (Dugès 1879a). We see no evidence that this was the case. At most, there are two specimens in Dugès’ description in Brocchi (1881): one specimen from Guanajuato, presumably the holotype noted in the original description, and a second from Tupátaro from a hole at the end of a cave called the “Cueva del Padre Torres” in the middle of Cerro San Gregorio Hill (Cueva del Padre Torres, au milieu du Cerro San Gregorio), Guanajuato. According to Smith & Necker (1943), none of the cotypes (= syntypes) were present at the MADUG when they examined the collection. Although they found one specimen that had a tag marked by Dugès as “ type ”, it was collected at a depth of 40 m in the Cedro Mine, Guanajuato; the specimen has no original tag but a typed tag (inside the jar) has the verbatim information reported by Smith & Necker (1943:201). They designated this female specimen as a neotype and gave a detailed description of it. This specimen is catalogued as HE 324 ( Fig. 1A ). Smith & Necker (1943) designated it as a neotype because they were unable to find any of the syntypes.

Later, Zweifel (1967) noted that the type was a skeleton following Smith & Taylor (1948); this information was originally reported by Mocquard (1899:161) who stated “J’avais en outre appris depuis peu que M. Dugès, entre les mains duquel était resté le type de H. Augusti , avait eu la malencontreuse idée de le sacrifier pour préparer le squelette! Je désespérais du pouvoir résoudre la question, lorsque l’envoi tout récent, fait au Muséum par ce naturaliste, d’un jeune spécimen d’ H. Augusti , vint heureusement me tirer d’embarras” (I recently learned that Mr. Dugès, who had in his hands the type of H. Augusti , had the unfortunate idea of sacrificing it to prepare the skeleton! I despaired of ever resolving the matter, when this naturalist recently sent a juvenile specimen of H. Augusti to the Museum, which happily helped me answer the question). There are two skeletons at the MADUG (HE 999, 1000; Fig. 1 B–C). Based on the measurements given in Brocchi (1881) HE 1000 is the specimen that most closely matches those measurements. It is important to mention that the original tag is not found with any of these specimens, only a note, not in Dugès’ handwriting, that says Moroleón, Gto. We believe that HE 1000 is the original type ( Fig. 1 C). Therefore, the neotype (HE 324) was wrongly designated by Smith & Necker (1943). Current valid name: Caugastor a. augusti (Dugès in Brocchi, 1879).

Figures

FIGURE 1. A, Hylodes augusti (HE 324) neotype designated by Smith & Necker (1943), and as precious assets by CDBPUG (2009); B, C, Skeletons of Hylodes augusti (HE 999, 1000, Holotype); D, Syntype of Ambystoma altamirani (HE 314).