Pelidnota pulchella pulchella (Kirby, 1819)

Moore, Matthew R., Jameson, Mary L., Garner, Beulah H., Audibert, Cedric, Smith, Andrew B. T. & Seidel, Matthias, 2017, Synopsis of the pelidnotine scarabs (Coleoptera, Scarabaeidae, Rutelinae, Rutelini) and annotated catalog of the species and subspecies, ZooKeys 666, pp. 1-349 : 1

Pelidnota pulchella pulchella (Kirby, 1819)

Rutela pulchella Kirby, 1819: 405-406 [original combination].

Pelidnota pulchella (Kirby) [new combination by MacLeay 1819: 154].

Rutela pulchella (Kirby) [new combination by Kirby 1824: 118].

Pelidnota pulchella (Kirby) [revised combination by Burmeister 1844: 394-395].

Pelidnota (Ganonota) pulchella (Kirby) [new subgeneric combination by Ohaus 1918: 26].

Pelidnota (Strigidia) pulchella (Kirby) [new subgeneric combination by Machatschke 1970: 157].

Pelidnota (Odontognathus) pulchella (Kirby) [new subgeneric combination by Hardy 1975: 4].

Strigidia pulchella (Kirby) [new combination by Soula 2006: 27-29].

Pelidnota (Strigidia) pulchella (Kirby) [revised combination and revised subgeneric combination by Özdikmen 2009: 145].

Pelidnota pulchella pulchella (Kirby) [removal of subgeneric classification by Soula 2009: 115].

Pelidnota pulchella blanda Burmeister, 1844 synonym.

Pelidnota pulchella var. blanda Burmeister, 1844: 394 [original combination, name is available as a subspecies per ICZN Article 45.6.4].

Pelidnota pulchella forma blanda Burmeister [revised infrasubspecific status by Machatschke 1972: 27].

Pelidnota pulchella var. blanda Burmeister [revised infrasubspecific status by Soula 2006: 28].

Pelidnota pulchella pulchella (Kirby) [syn. n.].

Pelidnota pulchella scapularis Burmeister, 1844 synonym.

Pelidnota pulchella var. scapularis Burmeister, 1844: 394 [original combination, name is available as a subspecies per ICZN Article 45.6.4].

Pelidnota pulchella forma scapularis Burmeister [revised infrasubspecific status by Machatschke 1972: 27].

Pelidnota pulchella var. scapularis Burmeister [revised infrasubspecific status by Soula 2006: 28].

Pelidnota pulchella pulchella (Kirby) [syn. n.].

Pelidnota xanthogramma Perty, 1830 synonym.

Pelidnota xanthogramma Perty, 1830: 49 [original combination].

Pelidnota pulchella var. xanthogramma Perty [new infrasubspecific status by Burmeister 1844: 394].

Pelidnota pulchella forma xanthogramma Perty [revised infrasubspecific status by Machatschke 1972: 27].

Pelidnota pulchella var. xanthogramma Perty [revised infrasubspecific status by Soula 2006: 28].

Pelidnota pulchella pulchella (Kirby) [syn. n.].

Distribution.

ARGENTINA ( Soula 2006). BRAZIL: Espírito Santo, Minas Gerais, Rio de Janeiro, Rio Grande do Sul, Santa Catarina, São Paulo ( Kirby 1824, Perty 1830, Laporte 1840, Burmeister 1844, 1855, Blanchard 1851, Ohaus 1913, 1918, 1934b, Guimarães 1944, Machatschke 1972, Soula 2006, Krajcik 2008). PARAGUAY: Caaguazú ( Dreschsel 2014), Guairá (WBWC).

Types.

Syntype ♀ of Rutela pulchella at BMNH (Fig. 78 ).

Remarks.

Kirby (1819) described Rutela puchella from “Brasilia” based on specimen(s) from "D. Hancock", and J. Curtis provided illustrations of the overall body form, antenna, labrum, mentum, mandible, and maxilla (table 21, fig. 10, p. 479). Based on Raphael (1970) this work was published in 1819 rather than 1818. Female specimens of P. pulchella have a narrower horizontal elytral band (mid-elytra to ¾ length of elytra), whereas males have a broader horizontal elytral band (mid elytra to apex or near apex). Some varieties may have been named based on this sexually dimorphic trait. Soula (2006) stated that the species is distributed in the Atlantic forest, north to Argentina and the state of Espírito Santo, and he named a new subspecies, P. pulchella altoparanaensis , for a "little series from Paraguay" ( Soula 2006).

Three names were proposed by Ohaus (1913) as infrasubspecific taxa of Pelidnota pulchella pulchella . These names are unavailable as per ICZN Article 45.6 (see Moore and Jameson 2013 for interpretation of Ohaus’s [1913] varieties). Ohaus (1913) names and describes both subspecies and infrasubspecific entities, even within the same genus (e.g., Homonyx ). Thus, the following unambiguously infrasubspecific names were proposed by Ohaus (1913: 501, 502): Pelidnota pulchella var. fulvopunctata (misspelled as fuscopunctata in Machatschke [1972: 27]), P. pulchella var. sellata , and P. pulchella var. reducta . These names have never been treated as subspecific and were maintained as infrasubspecific entities (var. or forma) in later catalogs ( Ohaus 1918, 1934b, Machatschke 1972). Because these Ohaus (1913) names were not used as valid species or subspecies nor treated as senior homonyms before 1985 we consider them unavailable: Pelidnota pulchella var. fulvopunctata Ohaus (unavailable name) (type female at ZMHB labeled: " P. pulchella Kirby v. fulvopunctata Ohaus"), P. pulchella var. sellata Ohaus (unavailable name) (type female at ZMHB labeled: " P. pulchella Kirby v. sellata Ohaus"), and P. pulchella var. reducta Ohaus (unavailable name) (type female at ZMHB labeled: " P. pulchella Kirby v. reducta Ohaus").

Two “varieties” of P. pulchella pulchella were described by Burmeister (1844: 394): Pelidnota pulchella var. blanda and Pelidnota pulchella var. scapularis . These names are ambiguously infrasubspecific because Burmeister (1844) did not expressly designate them as such and the rest of the work does not discuss subspecies as separate entities from varieties. ICZN Article 45.6.4 is applied here and these two Burmeister (1844) names should be considered available and subspecific from their original description. Burmeister (1844) also treated Pelidnota xanthogramma Perty (an available name originally proposed as a species) as a variety of P. pulchella . These three names were treated as infrasubspecific (var. or forma) by subsequent authors ( Ohaus 1913, 1918, Machatschke 1972, Soula 2006) to circumscribe dorsal and ventral color variation in P. pulchella (see Soula [2006: 29] for images of P. pulchella color variation). These three available names were later listed as synonyms of P. pulchella pulchella by Krajcik (2008). Because we do not consider Krajcik’s (2008, 2012, 2013) checklists of world scarabaeoids to contain authoritative taxonomic decisions and we do not recognize infrasubspecific entities, we formally list the following taxa in synonymy with P. pulchella pulchella (Kirby): Pelidnota pulchella var. scapularis Burmeister syn. n., Pelidnota pulchella var. blanda Burmeister syn. n., and Pelidnota xanthogramma Perty syn. n. .

Figures

Figure 78. Rutela pulchella Kirby (valid name Pelidnota pulchella pulchella [Kirby]) syntype female from BMNH. A Dorsal habitus B Lateral habitus C Specimen labels.