Trichius zonatus Germar, 1831

Krell, Frank-Thorsten, 2012, On nomenclature and synonymy of Trichius rosaceus, T. gallicus, and T. zonatus (Coleoptera: Scarabaeidae: Cetoniinae: Trichiini), Zootaxa 3278, pp. 61-68 : 63-64

Trichius zonatus Germar, 1831 (valid subspecies name), lectotype designation

The other name currently in use for the species called Trichius rosaceus Voet by the authors listed above and others is Trichius zonatus Germar, 1831 . Germar described Trichius zonatus from Sardinia, Greece and Anatolia, Turkey. The distribution indicates that he might have subsumed more than one species under his name, namely the true T. zonatus from Sardinia plus one or two species that occur in Greece and Anatolia, because the only species occurring in Sardinia ( Carpaneto & Piattella 1995) occurs neither in Greece nor Anatolia ( Mikšiċ 1959; Baraud 1992, Carpaneto et al. 2000, Smetana 2006), but Germar’s description of the white marks on the penultimate abdominal segment fits perfectly what we today call T. zonatus or T. gallicus and can be considered a species-specific character. Type material could neither be traced in the Museum für Naturkunde Berlin (J. Frisch in litt., Apr. 2010) nor in the Deutsches Entomologisches Institut Müncheberg (L. Behne in litt., Apr. 2011), nor in the Zoologische Sammlung der Martin-Luther-Universität Halle (K. Schneider in litt., Jan. 2011). In Burmeister’s collection in Halle, seven specimens of T. zonatus with locality ‘Sardinien” are present, but according to Burmeister (1842: 760), he had only three specimens from Sardinia which he had received from Gené as T. fasciolatus . Five years after Germar, Gené (1836) described the same Sardinian taxon as Trichius fasciolatus , but soon recognized the synonymy himself ( Gené 1839) and used Trichius zonatus Germar as the valid name.

According to his account, Burmeister did have Germar’s types in his collection, a male and a female “aus dem Littoral”, but they cannot be identified from the seven Sardinian specimens present today. The Germar collection was split up and distributed by Hermann Rudolph Schaum ( Horn et al. 1990) who certainly kept Cetoniinae (including Trichiini ) for his own collection. Those went via A. Melly to the Muséum d’Histoire Naturelle in Geneva in 1843 ( Horn et al. 1990) where one of the syntypes of Trichius zonatus could be traced. This specimen is a male and is herewith designated as the lectotype of Trichius zonatus Germar, 1831 ( Figs 1–3 ). The lectotype corresponds to original description and engraving with the exception of the inner spot of the pre-apical yellow band on the elytra. This spot clearly protrudes toward the apex in the lectotype whereas it is shown as a narrow transversal band in the original engraving. This is well within the intraspecific variation (see Ballerio et al. 2010) and might mean that the illustrator used another specimen from the type series. The lectotype has the following labels ( Fig. 4 ): tiny silver quadrate, “ zonatus / Germ. typ.” [handwritten by H.R. Schaum], “Schaum. / TYPE ” [first line handwritten], “Coll.Melly” [typeset], “ LECTOTYPUS / Trichius / zonatus GERMAR 1831 / des. F.-T. Krell 2011” [handwritten on red cardboard].

Identification of the lectotype. The specimen ( Figs 1–3 ) is fragile, but almost complete, with only the left protarsomeres III–V, the right protarsomeres II–V and the left metatarsal claw missing. The male lectotype, bearing a white stripe on each side of the penultimate sternite ( Fig. 3 ), together with the anterior black elytral band being restricted to the humeral region ( Fig. 1 ) and the mesotibiae being only slightly emarginated laterally, is clearly identifiable as the species currently called T. rosaceus or T. zonatus . The extended black coloration on the posterior part of the elytra ( Fig. 1 ) together with the shorter pronotal setae leaving a small discal area bald indicates that the specimen belongs to the Sardinian-North African subspecies ( Paulian & Baraud 1982; Dutto 2005; figures in Baraud 1985 and Ballerio et al. 2010).

Figures

FIGURES 1 – 4. Lectotype of Trichius zonatus Germar, 1831. Fig. 1, dorsal. Fig. 2, lateral, left side. Fig. 3, ventral. Fig. 4, labels.