Laparocerus piceus Boheman, 1834

Machado, Antonio, 2006, The type material of the species of Laparocerus Schönherr, 1834 (Coleoptera, Curculionidae, Entiminae), Journal of Natural History 40 (35 - 37), pp. 2001-2055 : 2032

Laparocerus piceus Boheman, 1834 **

Laparocerus piceus Boheman in Schönherr 1834, p 531.

Type locality. Island of Madeira.

Holotype: 1♀ much rubbed [Lusitania / Falderman]. NR (Coll. Schönherr), Stockholm.

Remarks. The species was described by Boheman based on a single female labelled as from Lusitania (5 Portugal); however, Gyllenhall is often cited as author. I have seen specimens of L. azoricus Drouet labelled as L. piceus in several collections (Coll. Stierlin, Osella, Poncy, etc.). Furthermore, Marseul (1872, p 548) placed the species with a question-mark as synonym of L. vespertinus ( Wollaston, 1854) and it is recorded identically in Winkler (1932, p 1448), even though L. piceus Boheman, 1834 would have priority over L. vespertinus ( Wollaston, 1854) , as posteriorly recognized by Schmitz (1898, p 154) in his list of Madeiran coleoptera. It has been registered in several catalogues ( Jacquelin du Val 1855; Lacordaire 1863; Lona 1938, etc.) as from Portugal, and only Lundblad (1958, p 485) assumes that the locality label ‘‘Lusitania’’ must be an error as in the case of L. morio , equally described by Boheman on a specimen provided by Falderman. Consequently, I assume the island of Madeira as the locality where the type really originated. The holotype of L. piceus is kept in Stockholm. It is a rubbed female specimen that resembles L. noctivagans ( Wollaston, 1854) , but could equally be assigned to L. lauripotens ( Wollaston, 1854) . Females of this group of Laparocerus ( L. vespertinus , included) are not always easy to separate. Therefore I propose to consider L. piceus , a nomen dubium.