Somatochlora viridiaenea atrovirens Selys, 1883

Syoziro Asahina, 1961, The Type Specimens of the Odonata in the Entomological Institute, Hokkaido University, Insecta matsumurana 24, pp. 57-65 : 62

28. Somatochlora viridiaenea atrovirens Selys, 1883

= Somatochlora vividiaenea magna Oguma, 1913

Somatochlora viridiaenea magna Oguma, 1913 c , p. 451 [Honshu (northern part)].

Judging from the original description the cotypes seem to be one male and several females. I found, in 1935, one male and three females as cotype of this subspecies in the collection. The single male specimen labelled “Dokan-yama, 1. VIII. 1901 ” is now selected as lectotype.

Somatochlora viridiaenea was described by Uhler (1858) based on a single female specimen taken from Hakodate, Hokkaido. Later, Selys (1883) described S. atrovirens based on several male specimens from “Japon”. The possibility that both the species are identical has been suggested by the later authors, Foerster (1909) and Oguma (1913 c); Foerster mentioned the other possibility that atrovirens would represent the Honshu-race [“Hondorasse”] of viridiaenea which is bigger than the Hokkaido race. But Oguma named the Honshu race as magna . On examining the Selysian types of atrovirens I found that the type label is given to a large-sized specimen, therefore atrovirens Selys may have priority over magna Oguma.