Afrius yolofa, sensu Dallas, 1851

Roell, Talita, Lemaître, Valérie A. & Webb, Michael D., 2019, Revision of the African shieldbug genus Afrius Stål, 1870 (Hemiptera: Heteroptera: Pentatomidae: Asopinae), European Journal of Taxonomy 520, pp. 1-44 : 33-34

Synonymies of yolofa , figuratus and purpureus

Earlier we noted that Dallas (1851) first stated the synonymy of figuratus with yolofa . Clearly, Stål (1870) and Schouteden (1905a) believed yolofa sensu Dallas (1851) was a misidentification, pertaining to figuratus . Pentatoma yolofa was synonymized with Cimex (Afrius) purpureus by Stål (1870). Asopus figuratus was considered as a variety of Canthecona purpurea by Schouteden (1905a). It appeared as a junior synonym of Afrius yolofus together with Pentatoma purpurea in Dupuis (1952) . Later, Leston (1954) made use of it as the valid name of the species; yet, in a footnote, it was corrected that the valid name should be Afrius yolofus . Additionally, the confusion between the use of figuratus and purpureus has been so great that some authors have even attributed the authorship of purpureus to Germar (e.g., Risbec 1950; Herting 1971, 1976). Considering the above, it is no surprise that figuratus appeared as a variety or subspecies of purpureus , even relatively recently. It is no surprise either that it still appeared as a valid name as late as 2000 ( Sileshi et al. 2000) and possibly later, concurrently with the other names ( yolofa , yolofus and purpureus ).

Problematic dating of yolofa and figuratus

As stated above, until Dupuis (1952), yolofa had been considered as a junior synonym of purpureus as its date of publication was thought to be 1838. This actually is that of figuratus . For a long time there was considerable confusion about the priority of the works of Westwood (1837) and Germar (1838); the title pages of both works indicated 1837 as the date of publication. Schouteden (1907b) demonstrated that Westwood’s work had priority. Sherborn (1922 – 1932) attributed the date “1840” to all taxa published by Germar in the fifth volume of the Revue entomologique (pages 121–192); most modern catalogues of Heteroptera list Germar’s work with the date 1838 (e.g., Rolston et al. 1993; Schuh 1995; Aukema & Rieger (eds) 1995 –2013; Rolston et al. 1996; Cassis & Gross 2002; CoreoideaSF Team 2018; Dellapé & Henry 2018). Recently, Nagel & Schmidlin (2014: 97) stated a precise date (21 November 1838) for taxa newly described between pages 1 to 224 of the fifth volume. As a consequence, Pentatoma purpurea Westwood, 1837 definitely has priority over Asopus figuratus Germar, 1838 [not 1837 as earlier authors had assumed], and Pentatoma yolofa Guérin-Méneville, 1831 over them both.

Should we use yolofa , a noun in apposition or yolofus , an adjective?

The original description indubitably shows that Guérin-Méneville chose an adjective and not a noun in apposition as may have been thought by recent authors who made use of the combination Afrius yolofa , possibly influenced by earlier authors ( Amyot & Serville 1843; Dallas 1851).

Guérin-Méneville (1831: plate 55, 1844: 344) used the binomen Pentatoma yolofa with a lower case “y”, implying that the name was treated as an adjective (a capital “D” was used for Scutellera Dives and a capital “S” for Tesseratoma [sic] Sonneratii on the same plate, as one would expect in those days for a noun in apposition or a genitive based on the name of a person); the same author ( Guérin-Méneville 1844: 344) also used the French vernacular name P[entatome] yolofe. Amyot & Serville (1843) cited this species as Canthecona Yolofa (with vernacular French as Canthécone Yolofa), using a capital “Y” in the Latin binomen (also followed by Dallas 1851), and a final “a” in the French name. Their use of a capital “Y” and of a final “a” in the French name indicates that these subsequent authors treated the species name as a noun in apposition.

The Grand Dictionnaire Universel du XIX siècle ( Larousse 1876: 1423) has an entry for the adjective “YOLOF ou YOLOFF, OVE”, meaning “relative to the native language of the Wolof people ( Senegal, Gambia, Mauritania)”. Although the adjective is there restricted to the field of linguistics and despite the fact that the proper feminine form of the adjective in French is “yolove”, it is clear that Guérin- Méneville (1831) meant to indicate that his Pentatoma , collected in Senegal, the land of the wolof/yolof people, was ‘yolove’ (expressed with an adjective), so he called it Pentatome yolofe/ Pentatoma yolofa . Admittedly, this adjective has not been used much in zoology; Sherborn (1932: 7031) only lists one other species having yolofus as its epithet, Prionus yolofus (Dalman, 1817) ( Coleoptera : Cerambycidae : Prioninae : Acanthophorini ). The latter species is now placed in the genus Tithoes Thomson, 1864 , which contains two other species whose epithets equally express their rather precise African provenance: Tithoes congolanus (Lameere, 1903) and T. somalius (Lameere, 1903) .

The precedence of A. yolofa over its synonyms, pointed out by Dupuis (1952) and echoed by Leston (1954), was generally ignored until Thomas (1994). Even now, few are those who apply it. In almost two centuries, a substantial number of papers on the species have been published using either purpureus or figuratus . Since purpureus has been the most used overall, since it was used continually to refer to this species since its publication and since Afrius purpureus is the name used in the latest publication on the species that we are aware of, we have used the name Afrius purpureus in this revision as the valid name. In addition, we intend to apply to the International Commission on Zoological Nomenclature, under Article 23.9.3 of the Code ( ICZN 1999), so that the prevailing usage of the specific name Pentatoma purpurea Westwood, 1837 (currently Afrius purpureus ) be conserved and ensured in future.