Proctotrupes brevipennis Latreille, 1802

Notton, David G., 2007, A catalogue of types of the smaller taxa of Proctotrupoidea (Hymenoptera) in the Muséum national d’Histoire naturelle, Paris, with notes on the history of the insect collection of L. A. G. Bosc d’Antic, Zoosystema 29 (3), pp. 457-470 : 464-465

Proctotrupes brevipennis Latreille, 1802

Proctotrupes brevipennis Latreille, 1802b: 309 .

CURRENT STATUS. — Proctotrupes brachypterus (Schrank, 1780) .

SYNTYPES. — France, Paris district, 1 ♀ (MNHN). — Southern France (“au midi de la France ”), ♀ (lost).

LABELS. — P. brevipennis / H. P. [? Hors de Paris ], Latreille ; Muséum Paris/ 1828/ coll. L. A. G. Bosc d’Antic [syntype ♀].

REMARKS

The syntype is pinned and is very mouldy, with both antennae lost except for one scape, the right hind leg is lost, and the apex of the gaster beyond the large sclerites is lost. The link between Bosc and P. A. Latreille is well established. They were almost exact contemporaries, Bosc being just three years older, and Latreille died only five years after Bosc. Both Cuvier (1829) and Silvestre (1829) recorded that Bosc gave a collection of American reptiles to Latreille in about 1800; Latreille (1802a) refered to Bosc as his friend; both belonged to the Société philomathique de Paris at the same time (Bosc from “An 3” to 1826 and Latreille from “An 4” to 1832 according to the membership lists published in the bulletin of the society); and most significantly Dutrouilh (1829) noted that Fabricius and Latreille found a large number of unpublished species in Bosc’s collection, the descriptions of which they used to enrich their works. Consequently type specimens of Latreille’s species are to be expected in Bosc’s collection. The survival of Hymenoptera type material of Latreille is especially significant since, despite Horn & Kahle (1935 -1937) who recorded that Latreille’s Hymenoptera were passed to the Muséum d’Histoire naturelle, Geneva (via B. E. de Romand and H. de Saussure), these are not recognisable in that collection today (Bernhard Metz pers. comm.) although it is possible some of Latreille’s types may still exist in the Spinola collection ( Casolari & Moreno 1978, 1979a, b). The synonymy established by Haliday (1833) and repeated by Townes &Townes (1981) is followed here but may need to be re-evaluated when the newly discovered syntype is revised.

Serphus (Cryptoserphus) longicalcar