Miocephala chalybea Konow, 1907

Taeger, Andreas, París, Mercedes & Nieves-Aldrey, Jose Luis, 2014, The type specimens of sawflies (Hymenoptera: Symphyta) of the Museo Nacional de Ciencias Naturales, Madrid, Zootaxa 3790 (1), pp. 103-138 : 113

Miocephala chalybea Konow, 1907

A valid species, Arge chalybea (Konow, 1907) .

Types. Miocephala chalybea Konow, 1907b:163 . Syntypes ♂ ♀, “ Sikkim ”. Lectotype ♂, hereby designated (SDEI, Fig. 14 , see also http://dx.doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.757697). Type locality: India, Sikkim. Paralectotype: ♀ (MNCN_Ent 100240, MNCN Cat. Tipos Nº 8129, Fig. 15 , see also http://dx.doi.org/10.6084/ m9.figshare.757694).

Discussion. Miocephala chalybea is the type species of Miocephala Konow, 1907 , which is treated today as a synonym of Arge Schrank, 1802 . Already its original description by Konow (1907b) caused some confusion. Both sexes of the taxon were described, but he mentioned only for the female: “Die weibliche Type ist Eigentum des National-Museums in Madrid ” [translated: ‘The female type is property of the National Museum in Madrid’]. The deposition of the male type(s) was not mentioned, and therefore it is to be expected in Konow's collection (today at SDEI). Konow’s note about the female type cannot be interpreted as a designation of a holotype. A male labeled by Konow is housed in the SDEI collection, and this specimen seems to be the only specimen of the species that was examined by subsequent authors ( Malaise 1937a: “the type... Miocephala chalybea Knw ♂ ”; Oehlke & Wudowenz 1984: “ 1 ♂, Syntypus ”; Saini & Thind 1995: “ Holotype, Coll. Konow ... ♂ ”). Futhermore, Saini & Thind (1995) claimed that the female of the species is unknown. All other mentions of chalybea seem to be based not on examined material, but on the papers cited above. Konow’s redescription ( Konow 1907e) is a translation of the Latin original description into German.

There are some discrepancies between the description and the available material. These concern primarily the coloration of the hind tibiae, that should be yellow (“tibiis posticis flavis”), and the body color, that should be black-blue (“nigro-coerulea”). In the male specimen the hind tibiae are very dark brown to black, and the thorax dorsally has a strong greenish tinge. On the other hand there is no doubt that the specimen is one of the syntypes, and Konow’s description regarding the male is inaccurate. The question, if the two specimens are conspecific or not, must be left unanswered. It seems not unlikely that they represent the same species, but more specimens are needed to prove this assumption. As all subsequent papers about the status of Miocephala and chalybea are based on the male, this specimen was selected as lectotype, even if the description of the species does not completely fit the type specimen.

Figures

FIGURE 14. Miocephala chalybea, lectotype ♂. a. dorsal, scale 2 mm; b. lateral; c. head and thorax dorsal; d. face; e. labels.

FIGURE 15. Miocephala chalybea, paralectotype ♀. a. dorsal, scale 2 mm; b. ventral; c. face; d. head dorsal; e. labels.