Liptena subundularis (Staudinger, 1892)

Libert, Michel, 2021, The types of Liptena augusta Suffert, 1904 and Liptena subundularis (Staudinger, 1892) (Papilionoidea: Lycaenidae: Poritiinae), Metamorphosis 32 (1), pp. 13-14 : 13-14

Liptena subundularis (Staudinger, 1892)

Stempffer (1957) attributed the three females from Bipindi to L. augusta when he reinstated this species, but they are clearly females of L. subundularis .

The description of this species is based on "several" males from Gabon (Ogowe, leg. Mocquerys) and one female from Cameroon [Victoria (now Limbe), leg. Teusz]. Here again, Stempffer et al. (1974: 156) considered that "Staudinger’s types of [ L subundularis ] were mostly destroyed in the last war". But they found in the collection of the London Museum a male collected in Ogowe by Mocquerys “which is believed to be one of the original series” and which bears an “Origin” label [like those that Staudinger associated with his typical material], and they designated it as a lectotype.

Five of Staudinger's syntypes have also been rediscovered in the Berlin Museum [four males from Ogowe and the female from Victoria).

One of the males (the one with the best drawn underside) bears a label indicating that it is illustrated by Grose-Smith (1892 pl. XVIII, Figs 9 & 10). Grose-Smith’s publication offers "photographic representations of the type specimens in the (Berlin Museum)”, and one could conclude that the male illustrated by Grose-Smith is the type. But the lectotype designated by Stempffer et al. (1974) is also a syntype, from the same locality, and it was furthermore, dissected by one of the authors (Bennett), and it does not seem justified to reverse this designation.