Cassida cribraria Fabricius, 1775

Sekerka, Lukáš & Barclay, Maxwell V. L., 2014, Fabrician types of Cassidinae (Coleoptera: Chrysomelidae) deposited in the Natural History Museum, London, Acta Entomologica Musei Nationalis Pragae 54 (2), pp. 657-684 : 661-662

Cassida cribraria Fabricius, 1775

( Figs 7–9 )

Cassida cribraria Fabricius, 1775: 90 .

Type locality. ‘America’.

Type material examined. LECTOTYPE (hereby designated): ♀ (specimen with large spots on elytra), pinned, ‘ Cassida cribraria | Fab. Entom. p. [printed] 90. n. 9. [w, hw, s, bf]’ ( BMNH). PARALECTOTYPE: ♀ (specimen with small spots), without label and pinned next to the lectotype ( BMNH). Both specimens are provided with an additional label: ‘ LECTOTYPUS [or PARALECTOTYPUS, respectively] | Cassida | cribraria | Fabricius, 1775 | L. Sekerka & | M.V.L. Barclay des. 2014 [r, p, cb]’.

Status in ZIMSEN (1964). P. 90; No. 1315. ‘London, 2 specimens (Kiel 1 specimen)’.

Original description. ‘C. rufescens, thorace punctis quatuor, elytris numerioris, nigris, clypeo emarginato. Habitat in America. Mus. Dom. Banks.

Statura nostratum, at paulo major. Antennae apice nigrae. Clypeus emarginatus, rufescens, punctis quatuor dorsalibus nigris. Elytra laevia, gibba, rufescentia, punctis numerosis sparsis. Corpus nigrum.’ ( FABRICIUS 1775).

Current status. New junior objective synonym of Chelymorpha cassidea ( Fabricius, 1775) .

Remarks. FABRICIUS (1775) proposed the species based on specimen(s) with four black spots on the pronotum and red elytra with black spots and black ventrites. BOHEMAN (1854) transferred the species to Chelymorpha Chevrolat, 1836 and used the name for South American specimens having the pronotum with two small spots and the elytra with numerous small black specks. ZIMSEN (1964) reported three specimens, two in the BMNH and one in JFUK (the latter placed in parentheses). The JFUK specimen is in accordance with BOHEMANތ s (1854) concept of C. cribraria , but, it does not agree with the original description.

Chelymorpha cribraria as de¿ned and used since BOHEMAN (1854) is a very variable species, but the ¿rst author has never examined a specimen having four spots on pronotum in combination with numerous small black spots on the elytra, although BOHEMAN (1854) mentioned such a colour form as ‘var. A’. Some populations have four irregular spots on the pronotum but these have a more or less black disc of the elytra. Moreover, C. cribraria sensu Boheman always has at least a slightly reddish or rust-coloured underside, like the JFUK specimen, but unlike the original description ( FABRICIUS 1775) which mentions a black underside. Therefore we do not consider the JFUK specimen as part of the type series.

The two BMNH specimens agree with the original description having black body, red dorsum, and the pronotum with four black spots. What Fabricius meant by ‘[elytra] punctis numerosis sparsis’ is questionable, since both specimens have each elytron with six spots and one common postscutellar spot. One specimen has these spots large and the other smaller, but still, the spots are at least sparsely distributed. In such cases Fabricius usually (though not always) gave a precise number of spots. Other characters are fully in accordance with the original description, and indeed 13 spots may be considered ‘numerous’, so we consider both specimens to be syntypes. Both specimens are conspeci¿c with Chelymorpha cassidea ( Fabricius, 1775) described in the same work as C. cribraria but in the genus Coccinella Linnaeus, 1758 . We retain the name C. cassidea as valid with C. cribraria as its junior synonym following the First Reviser Principle, Article 24.2.1 of the Code ( ICZN 1999), because C. cassidea has been correctly applied and refers to a common North American species (see further comments under Coccinella cassidea ).

As we stated above, C. cassidea is a very variable species having several more or less distinct local races in the USA and the two Banks specimens of C. cribraria belong to different populations. Therefore we designate as the lectotype the specimen with larger elytral spots which represents the most common North American population, also characterized by ¿ne punctation of the elytra. The other specimen has, except for smaller spots, distinctly coarser punctation thus certainly came from a different locality.

Due to the new synonymy, the taxon identi¿ed until now as Chelymorpha cribraria loses its name, and thus following the Code ( ICZN 1999), the oldest available synonym Chelymorpha multipunctata (Olivier, 1790) becomes the valid name. This species was also designated as the type species of the genus Chelymorpha by DUPONCHEL & CHEVROLAT (1843).

Figures

Figs 7–12. 7–9 – Cassida cribraria Fabricius, 1775, lectotype, and Coccinella cassidea Fabricius, 1775, neotype; 10–12 – Cassida interrupta Fabricius, 1775, syntype. (7, 10 – habitus dorsal; 8, 11 – habitus lateral; 9, 12 – labels).