Talorchestia franchetti, Maccagno, 1936

Lowry, J. K. & Springthorpe, R. T., 2019, Talitrid amphipods from India, East Africa and the Red Sea (Amphipoda, Senticaudata, Talitroidea, Talitridae), Zootaxa 4638 (3), pp. 351-378 : 357

The Talorchestia franchetti and Talorchestia affinis problem

Maccagno (1936) studied a large collection of talitrids (Museo Civico di Storia Naturale di Genova) from a beach in Assab, Eritrea. He considered them to be two species, the smaller (6–7 mm) which he called Talorchestia franchetti Maccagno, 1936 and the larger (9–10 mm) he called Talorchestia affinis Maccagno, 1936 . Although he described the species, he did not designate types, did not illustrate the species and did not adequately distinguish it from other species. The species are not identifiable from the descriptions. We borrowed these specimens from the Museo Civico di Storia Naturale “Giacomo Doria”. In fact the specimens of T. franchetti Maccagno, 1936 are almost certainly immature specimens of T. affinis .

Because Maccagno’s original material came from near the collection site of our material and because we have material on either side of Maccagno’s site and to conserve his original name we are designating a lectotype for T. affinis and a lectotype for T. franchetti , which we consider to be a junior objective synonym of T. affinis .