Othnonius batesii Olliff, 1890

Allsopp, Peter G., 2020, Clarification of the status of the types of Australian Melolonthini (Coleoptera Scarabaeidae: Melolonthinae) described before 1950, Zootaxa 4885 (4), pp. 451-486 : 474

Othnonius batesii Olliff, 1890

Othnonius batesii Olliff, 1890: 6 .

Othnonius batesi: Britton 1978: 37 ; Weir et al. 2019: 494 (in error).

Weir et al. (2019) attributed publication of Olliff’s paper to 1891, but part 1 of the Proceedings of the Linnean Society of New South Wales is marked as issued on 16 June 1890 .

Olliff (1890) described this species, from what appears to have been males given the description of the antennal club, from Wilcannia, Mossgiel, Walgett and Clarence River, all in inland New South Wales. ‘Clarence River’ was used as a broad district name that included the Clarence River watershed and adjacent areas in northeastern New South Wales during the early days of European settlement in the mid-1800s ( Will & Monteith 2018). Olliff (1890) did not designate one specimen as a holotype or equivalent and did not say how many specimens he saw or where they were deposited (although he worked at AM). The species is not listed in McKeown’s (1948) list of types of beetles in AM.

Britton (1978) referred to a male “ holotype ” from Mossgiel in AM but gave no reasoning why he selected a particular specimen or why he accorded it that status. He also referred to a “ paratype ” from each of Wilcannia and Walgett in AM. Houston & Weir (1992) interpreted that incorrect reference to a holotype as a lectotype designation by Britton (1978) and noted two other specimens in AM as paralectotypes. Neither of these mentions of a holotype constitutes a valid lectotype designation (vide Article 74.5).

Derek Smith searched the AM collection in November 2018 and could not find any of the syntypes and they are not in ANIC (D. Smith, personal communication 2018), which Britton visited and then worked in from 1964. It appears that not only did Olliff not indicate the type status in his papers, but he did not always distinguish such specimens within the collection; as such the specimens received no special treatment from staff within the museum and could easily have been destroyed or exchanged after his early death in 1895. There is a specimen from Mossgiel in ANIC that might be a syntype, but it has no other identifying label.

The species is well characterised, so there is no need to designate a neotype.