Scarabaeus aeruginosus Drury, 1773

Krell, Frank-Thorsten, Rey, Antonio, Micó, Estefanía, Dutto, Moreno & U. S. A., 2012, On nomenclature and identity of Scarabaeus aeruginosus Linnaeus, S. aeruginosus Drury and S. speciosissimus Scopoli (Coleoptera: Scarabaeoidea: Cetoniinae and Rutelinae), Revue suisse de Zoologie 119 (1), pp. 99-110 : 102-103

Scarabaeus aeruginosus Drury, 1773 , unavailable

In the first volume of his Illustrations. of Natural History, Drury (1770: 72) described a species from Smyrna (= Izmir, Turkey) that he refers to "Lin., Syst. page 558. No 80. (AEruginosus.) Gron. Mus. 424. tab. 15. fig. 7." In the Index to the Illustrations, which is the only nomenclaturally available part of Drury's work and dated 1773 (ICZN 1957), Drury called the species " AEruginosus, Linn. P. 558. N. 80. Scar." These references make clear that Drury did not introduce a new species, but simply referred to Linné's Scarabaeus aeruginosus which he misinterpreted. According to Art. 49 (ICZN 1999) " Scarabaeus aeruginosus Drury " is not an available name as already stated by Bedel (1909). It correctly is not included in Hayek's (1985) list of species described by Drury.

Drury's (1770) description and colour illustration (figure 4 on plate 33) clearly refer to a species of the former flower chafer subgenus Cetonischema that contained two species: Protaetia speciosa ( Adams, 1817) and P. aeruginosa . sensu Drury that we

will be calling P. speciosissima . In the Aegean costal region of Izmir, both species are.

likely to occur. Protaetia . speciosa venusta ( Ménetriès, 1836) was recorded from Izmir by Tauzin (1992). Iren & Ahmed (1973) list P. aeruginosa as a fruit pest from the Aegean region of Turkey. Tezcan & Pehlivan (2001) record P. speciosissima from the.

Manisa Province (38°39'N, 27°20'E), eastwardly adjacent to the Izmir Province. However, according to Legrand (1991) P. speciosissima and P. speciosa venusta are reliably distinguishable by genital examination only.

Original Drury material is difficult to recognize and partly lost ( Hayek 1985), but since Drury did not describe a new species, it is unnecessary to exactly determine the species he called Scarabaeus aeruginosus L.

Since Medvedev (1964) fixed " Scarabaeus aeruginosus Drury " as type species of the genus Cetonischema Reitter, according to Art. 11.10. (ICZN 1999), the species name is available from this act as Potosia (Cetonischema) aeruginosa Medvedev, 1964 . Since Medvedev also mentioned P. speciosa and its subspecies and figured their genitalia, the identity of P. aeruginosa Medvedev is clear, the species name being a synonym of what we call Protaetia speciosissima (Scopoli) .