Voluccella Fabricius, 1794: 412

Michelsen, Verner & O’Hara, James E., 2014, A review of genus-group names in Diptera (Insecta) that J. C. Fabricius “ borrowed ” from other dipterists and proposed as new in his systematic works from 1775 to 1805, Zootaxa 3873 (1), pp. 73-81 : 76-77

Voluccella Fabricius, 1794: 412 .

Type species: Voluccella florea Fabricius, 1794 (the 1st of three originally included species), automatic as the result of Latreille’s (1810) designation of Voluccella florea Fabricius as type species for Usia Latreille, 1802 , an unnecessary new replacement name for Voluccella Fabricius, 1794 . Voluccella Fabricius, 1794 was placed on the Official Index of Rejected and Invalid Generic Names in Zoology (Name No. 844) by the International Commission on Zoological Nomenclature (1957: 88) and is therefore a senior but invalid synonym of Usia Latreille (Bombyliidae) .

Remarks. The name Volucella Geoffroy, 1762 , as originally proposed for species of Syrphidae , was cited under Musca pellucens Linnaeus, 1758 by Fabricius (1775: 773, misspelled as Voluccella ; 1781: 435, as Voluccella ), and under Syrphus pellucens (Linnaeus, 1758) by Fabricius (1794: 279, as Volucella ; 1805: 224, as Voluccella ).

Fabricius (1794: 412) deliberately proposed a different usage of the name Voluccella for three species of the family Bombyliidae , and this usage qualifies as a new available name. Two original spellings of the name were given in Fabricius (1794): Voluccella (p. 412) and Volvicella (p. [5] of the unnumbered index). Acting as First Reviser, Fabricius (1805) selected Voluccella as the correct original spelling (Code Article 24.2.4). Fabricius (1805: 114–116) included six species of the Bombyliidae in his Voluccella . Meigen (1804) initially adopted the usage of Voluccella proposed by Fabricius, but the name was subsequently replaced by Usia Latreille.

Volucella Geoffroy and Voluccella Fabricius are not homonyms because the names differ by one letter (Code Article 56.2). Evenhuis & Greathead (2003: 10–11) understood this and believed therefore that the widely used generic name Usia Latreille, 1802 in Bombyliidae , originally proposed as a replacement name for Voluccella Fabricius, 1794 , was threatened as a junior synonym. These authors were aware that Voluccella Fabricius was invalid as the result of a ruling by the International Commission on Zoological Nomenclature (1957: 88) (see Evenhuis 1991: 77) but were concerned that this ruling could be challenged and potentially overturned (as allowed under Code Article 80.4) because it was based on the misinterpretation of Voluccella as a misspelling of Volucella Geoffroy (N. Evenhuis, pers. comm.). To permanently fix the priority of Usia Latreille, 1802 over Voluccella Fabricius, 1794 , Evenhuis & Greathead (2003) declared the former as a nomen protectum and the latter as a nomen oblitum.